Travel News | Travel Advice

During the past 5 years Exeter International Airport (EIA) has enjoyed significant expansion and development.

During 2000 the airport was handling around 300,000 passengers p.a. From 2003 that figure has trebled and in 2007 the airport exceeded the one million passenger milestone.

According to the UK Department of Transport’s 2003 white paper “The Future of Air Transport” Exeter International “has a distinctive role in serving the local catchment area and there is significant scope for development without major environmental impacts”.

By 2015 it is expected the airport will handle more than 1.9 million passengers p.a and 4 million by 2030.

The airports largest Airline customer is currently FlyBe. FlyBe have based four Bombardier Dast 8-Q400s and two Embraer 195s there and provides more than 190 flights a week on 18 different routes. It also has dedicated maintainence facilities.

Other scheduled carriers at EIA include regional carrier Skybus, who service the route to the Isle of Scilly.

Perhaps more importantly, First Choice Airways, part of the TUI Group, who have offered charter packages from Exeter Airport for the past few years, have now based a dedicated aircraft there for the summer season.

A recent survey conducted by First Choice Airlines, which questioned passengers flying from 15 UK airports revealed that Exeter was voted in joint first place for the check-in experience.

A First Choice representative is quoted as saying that “Exeter Airport is one of the best performing airports that our company uses and the staff friendliness and efficiency play a major part in the holiday experience for our customers”.

The Top Ten routes from Exeter are as follows:

1. Paris 64,037 passengers
2. Malaga 62,055 passengers
3. Glasgow 56,303 passengers
4. Newcastle 56,150 passengers
5. Manchester 53,942 passengers
6. Alicante 47,854 passengers
7. Palma 42,552 passengers
8. Faro 41,432 passengers
9. Amsterdam 37,490 passengers
10. Belfast City 34,356 passengers

FlyGlobespan has announced plans to launch a weekly Cardiff – Toronto (Hamilton) service from June 2009.

The service will be particularly welcome as it replaces the twice-weekly flights operated by the now defunct airline Zoom.

The Scottish airline plans to use Boeing 767 on the route.

Monarch Airlines and Cosmos Holidays are names that will be familiar to millions of British Holiday makers. Both companies have been taken passengers on holiday for a number of years.

It is perhaps less well known that both companies are actually part of the same group.

This looks set to change, as they have joined forces to become Monarch Holidays on the internet, although Cosmos holidays can still be booked on the high street with your travel agent.

Monarch Holidays have 100% ATOL protection, offer holidays to hundreds of resorts worldwide and are fully covered by ABTA, so you can book your next holiday with confidence.

For those travellers who are looking for flight only Monarch also offer an extensive range of flight only deals and at time of writing (29/10/08) are offering up to 47% web discounts on flight only deals for departures this winter. Flights depart from Manchester Airport, Birmingham International Airport, London Luton Airport and London Gatwick Airport.

For added convenience, flight only customers can also book car hire, hotels, insurance, parking and transfers with Monarch Flights.

Monarch are also featuring on ITV2 currently, thanks to the programme CelebAir, which has celebrities working on a dedicated aircraft serving real passengers on real flights.