PalmAir Suspends Bournemouth
It was interesting to note on the BBC website yesterday that PalmAir have announced they are suspending flights from Bournemouth during November, December and January.
This is quite a bold move on their part as their only real operation base is out of Bournemouth so it means their plane(s) are grounded for 3 months. However as the Managing Director of PalmAir David Skillicorn said that the majority of bookings were for last-minute flights, which obviously makes scheduling and planning very difficult for them. No doubt it costs a lot of money to have planes idle on the ground, but more to have them flying half empty.
Hopefully we’ll see them flying again in February, if not it’s not good news for Bournemouth Airport which has recently spent £45m on a new terminal building and for who PalmAir is a major airline.
One challenge is also the consumer demand for ‘cheaper’ prices. Companies are continually under pressure to be the ‘cheapest’ and it simply becomes a race to the bottom. The result is no one wins as more and more travel companies go out of business and the consumer loses choice and ends up with prices going up to compensate.
At Not Just Travel we’ve seen an increasing demand for long haul destinations such as Maldives, Mauritius and the Caribbean. Sales have continued to grow every month. In fact we’ve got more future bookings than we’ve ever had before. Part of this we believe is so that the customer can plan their finances better and pay off their holiday over a longer period of time.