Thomson Fly News

THOMSONFLY CELBRATES ONE YEAR OF FLYING FROM BOURNEMOUTH

• Over 550,000 bookings made since launching a year ago

• Bournemouth outperforms other airports in Thomsonfly’s on time records

• Malaga and Palma most popular destinations

Thomsonfly is today celebrating its one year anniversary of successful flying from Bournemouth Airport.

It was twelve months ago, in the early hours of a drizzly Tuesday morning, that the airline’s first aircraft took flight from Bournemouth’s runway, destined for Valencia.

To celebrate this anniversary Thomsonfly is giving away a plane’s worth of one way seats (148 seats) from Bournemouth for just 1p when booked online from 8am until midnight on the 22 March.

Since first going on sale back in December 2004, the airline has booked over 550,000 passengers through the Dorset airport. Thomsonfly continues to fly to beach, city and ski destinations with the most popular flight route being Malaga, closely followed by Palma.

Popular destinations for the past winter programme included Salzburg and Lyon as winter sports enthusiasts and winter city break fans took advantage of the great value for money on these routes. This coming summer Thomsonfly will be flying from Bournemouth to Alicante, Amsterdam, Faro, Ibiza, Malaga, Palma, Paphos, Pisa and Tenerife - Paphos and Tenerife are new additions to the summer programme this year and have already proved popular over the winter months. One way fares start from £16.99 including taxes and charges.

Bournemouth has also been one of the best airport performers in Thomsonfly’s on time records with 87% of all flights taking off within 15 minutes of its allocated time. These are excellent figures that exceeded expectations.

Maria Heckel, marketing director for Thomsonfly, said; “It’s great to be celebrating the one year anniversary of such a successful partnership between our airline and Bournemouth Airport. It’s been such an important year for the growth of Thomsonfly and starting to fly from Bournemouth was one of the most significant steps we have taken since the airline was launched back in 2003. The passenger support has been overwhelming and we are happy to be able to continue to provide flights to such a great range of places from their local airport.”

As well as many people of the Bournemouth and surrounding areas taking advantage of the new flight services over the last year, the airline has also brought many visitors into Dorset. Some have been visiting

friends or relatives, some to take advantage of the numerous language schools along the coast and others to explore the many local highlights and do business with local organisations. The most popular route for bookings originating overseas is Amsterdam.

Thomsonfly has created over 80 jobs at the airport since it started flying last year, including cabin crew, pilots, managers, security and administration.

Thomsonfly has always been committed to providing a high level of customer service and since the low fares airline was launched in 2004 from Coventry Airport the airline has offered passengers the opportunity to

book extra legroom and always allocates seats at check in, unlike the majority of low fares airlines. Thomsonfly is always keen for customer feedback and since launching the airline from Bournemouth last year 82% of passengers have rated cabin crew friendliness, and customer care as good or excellent and the same percentage was achieved when assessing Thomsonfly’s value for money.

Currently many people are booking for Mothers Day and Easter and there are some excellent deals with Thomson departing from Bournemouth.

Easter deals from Bournemouth:

Amsterdam

Flights start from £16.99 one way departing anytime between 10-12 April
Rooms start from £80 per night at the Acro Hotel, Amsterdam

Salzburg

Flights start from £39.49 one way departing 15 April
Rooms start from £80 per night (4th night free) at the Trummer Strube, Salzburg

Alicante

Flights start from £53.99 one way departing 12 April
Rooms start from £15 per night at the Flamingo Playa, Benidorm, Costa Blanca

Malaga

Flights start from £39.99 one way departing 12 April
Rooms start from £25 per night at the Myramar Castle Beach, Fuengirola, Costa del Sol
 
Thomsonfly is now offering low fares flights to 87 destinations from 26 UK airports - more UK departure points than any other airline.  Flights can be booked at www.thomsonfly.com at any Thomson shop or by calling 0870 1900 737.