Flights to Rhodes

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Flights to Rhodes

Postby Fullenglish » 07 Oct 2016, 07:50

Hi,
Can someone please tell me why Easyjet do not fly to Rhodes Airport from Stanstead or Luton airport. They do fly to other destinations from these airports and I use Easyjet to fly from Gatwick or Luton when travelling to Switzerland from time to time.

Easyjet flights to Rhodes fly from Gatwick which is accessible for me coming from Essex, however Stanstead or Luton would be much easier for me.

Ryanair do fly from Stanstead to Rhodes. So do Jet 2. So could the reason be that the Airbus 320 which Easyjet use is not economical enough for this flight and Ryanair and Jet 2 use bigger aircraft for this flight?

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Re: Flights to Rhodes

Postby Andy W » 10 Oct 2016, 19:03

Absolutely nothing to do with the A320. Easyjets newest A320s seat 186 people, Ryanair and Jet2's 737-800s seat 189. The difference of three extra passengers isn't enough to counteract the fact that the A320 is more fuel-efficient.
Jet2 will be flying from Stansted to Rhodes next year, they don't fly from Stansted to anywhere at all this year, this is a new venture for them. About three quarters of Jet2 passengers come from Jet2 Holidays, and they've obviously made this move to grow their package holiday business in the South East at the expense of Thomson and Thomas Cook.
Luton Airport is absolutely at capacity - they can't find a parking space for even one more aircraft overnight at the moment, so if EasyJet or Ryanair wanted to start a route to Rhodes from there, they'd have to cancel a flight to somewhere else - adding an extra aircraft to the based fleet isn't an option.
Note that EasyJet dominates Gatwick and Ryanair dominates Stansted. Although you will find orange planes at Stansted and flying harps at Gatwick, there aren't so many of them. The two airlines try to avoid competing head to head between the exact same pairs of airports, when they've done this in the past both companies have lost money on the route. Ryanair's biggest base anywhere in Europe is at Stansted, EasyJet's is at Gatwick, and they're also the biggest airlines at their respective main base airports - by serving Rhodes from one London airport each they still access the general London - Rhodes market, and pick up the sizeable local markets nearer the airports.

Ryanair is reducing the number of flights to Rhodes in 2017, by cutting frequencies, shortening the operating season, and withdrawing flights from some airports altogether. They've totally abandoned flying to Kos next year. Their view is that in the time it takes to do a round trip to Rhodes, they can do two round trips to France or Spain. Not only that, but there's only so much overpriced coffee, warm cans of beer, and iffy sandwiches you can sell in a single flight. Revenue doesn't just come from the fares charged.
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Re: Flights to Rhodes

Postby Fullenglish » 12 Oct 2016, 12:55

Thanks Andy for your detailed answer. Much obliged.
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