Jersey is to gain a daily Thomsonfly Boeing 737 service from both Cardiff and Luton for the summer, from Monday 14 May. However the island is to loose its twice daily Stansted flights on15 January following the sale of the Atlantic Express ATR operation (pictured below). Atlantic owner Mike Collett says he is disappointed that the operation is to close and says that the new owners will be putting the aircraft to other uses. He sees great potential for the route which was beginning to establish itself as a serious link to the Channel Islands for Stansted's many budget carriers, London's City, and also the new North Atlantic business class operators.
The new Thomsonfly flights follow the establishment of its services from Coventry and Doncaster airports to Jersey, now all the year round operations.
Jersey lost its link to Heathrow some years back when British Airways decided to put the slots to other uses, concentrating on Gatwick where it competes with FlyBe. However there are now question marks over that operation which, if the sale of Connect goes through, will vie with an airline in which BA would have a 15% interest. Some consolidation and joint marketing is a possibility introducing competition questions.
Jersey is also linked daily to the mainland with frequent services from Southampton, although with BA Connect dumping its services FlyBe is the only operator. From London City VLM has a single daily flight departing LCY 0900 with the return at 1700 out of Jersey.
