Regional carrier Flybe will launch flights from Southampton and Exeter to Barcelona next summer, and will also fly from Exeter to Nice.
The airline will fly three times-weekly between Southampton and Barcelona from March 31, 2013, and twice-weekly from Exeter to both Barcelona and Nice.
There are not currently any non-stop services operating on these routes. Vueling launched flights between Southampton and Barcelona earlier this year, but these flights are not currently operating and Southampton does not appear in the carrier’s list of destinations.
The new Flybe routes were announced as part of Flybe’s summer 2013 schedule, which will also see several new winter routes being operated over the summer for the first time, including Birmingham to Amsterdam, East Midlands to Amsterdam, Glasgow, Jersey and Paris Charles de Gaulle, and Southampton to Nantes.
In addition, flight frequencies will be increased on summer routes from Exeter to Alicante, Faro, Malaga and Palma, as well as Manchester to Newquay, Jersey to Cardiff, and Gatwick to Inverness.
Andrew Strong, managing director of Flybe UK, said: “We’re pleased to offer our customers such a wide choice of routes for next summer and that, due to popular demand, we’ve been able to continue operating so many of the new winter routes we’ve introduced for the upcoming season.”
The news follows Flybe’s recent decision to drop several routes this winter, including Exeter-Leeds, Gatwick-Aberdeen, Manchester-Brussels and Southampton-Frankfurt.
flybe.com