Primera Air, the budget carrier gearing up to launch transatlantic flights from the UK, has cancelled one of its proposed Birmingham services due to lack of demand.
The Birmingham-Boston flight was due to start on June 22, but the Danish/Latvian airline has axed the proposed route due to lack of interest. The carrier will also reduce its daily Birmingham-Newark flight to four times a week on June 23 following its launch on May 18.
Primera said: “While we see very strong passenger numbers for flights to Toronto and New York, unfortunately there is a significantly lower demand for the Boston route, mainly driven by insufficient incoming traffic. For this reason Primera Air was forced to review the airline’s schedule out of Birmingham airport that will also affect service to New York, now offering four flights per week.
“We have to keep a very solid approach and strongly focus only on those destinations delivering the best commercial results. While Boston is one of the best performers from London and Paris, in Birmingham unfortunately the results so far have been lower than our expectations and business forecast.
“Nevertheless, we are keeping those flights from Birmingham that are the most demanded by the market as well as adding new ones. Furthermore, Birmingham airport by far is our biggest new base for 2018 regarding the number of flights.” A spokesperson added that proposed US services from Stansted would launch as planned.
Meanwhile, Primera Travel Group has launched an online agency in the UK. Primera Holidays will offer hotels in Spain, Greece and Croatia, matching properties with flights from Primera Air plus Jet2.com, easyJet, Norwegian and British Airways from a variety of airports.
Andri Már Ingólfsson, president and chairman of Primera Travel Group said: “We are very proud to announce the expansion of our business that we have been building for more than 20 years in Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and other countries. Now we want to take it to a new challenging market – the UK.”
He added: “We have worked hard throughout 2017 to develop a strong offering and are confident that we will grow to be a market leader in 2018 and 2019.”