Airport numbers hit five-year high

Thursday 21 January 2016

There’s been a big increase in the number of us flying in and out of the Island and most of us are choosing to take off on a budget.

Last year saw more than 1.5 million passengers at Jersey Airport – the highest number in five years and almost 30% of us flew with low-cost carrier easyjet.

A total of 1,532,742 commercial air passengers travelled through the Airport, almost 59,000 more than in 2014 and almost 7% more than in 2013 and that’s despite us losing our direct links to Paris, Amsterdam and Switzerland and there being fewer inter-island services.

The German routes proved popular along with other UK regions and the airports in London, Ireland and Scotland were all busier.

Easyjet had the biggest market share with 29.2%, closely followed by Flybe with 27.4% and British Airways with 25.2%.

Ports of Jersey’s Group Commercial Director Myra Shacklady said: “Our Route Development programme was first established in 2007 as a means of attracting new business to the Island. Despite economic factors beyond our control, which affected air travel globally we have achieved notable success over the years and the 2015 figures show encouraging signs that things are starting to improve.

“As always, major events such as Festivals do attract high numbers and in particular the Island Games attracted an additional 3,000 passengers. We continue to welcome low-cost carriers, including easyJet, Jet2.com and Air Berlin and the high volumes and growth they bring to the market. For an island the size of Jersey we believe we have an enviable network of air services across the British Isles.” 

This summer you can fly to up to 45 destinations across the British Isles and mainland Europe. Jersey Airport’s summer 2016 programme has more than 100,000 additional seats on offer thanks to increased capacity by British Airways, easyJet and Flybe.

As well as a new service to London Luton, this year there's a twice weekly direct air service between Jersey and Berne, which will operate between April and October by Swiss carrier Skyworks and you can fly off on more sunshine charters to Malaga and Palma.

Miss Shacklady said: “With a varied air route network proposed for 2016 we are hopeful of another busy year.

“As always, our Route Development team is in discussion with existing and potential new airline partners to look at further opportunities to expand the network, with more flights into mainland Europe, in particular Scandinavia, an area we wish to pursue”

The number of ferry passengers haven’t been finalised yet but the Ports of Jersey say they expect to see a slight drop because of the number of disruptions affecting services last year.