Crisis-hit airline to suspend transatlantic flights

Primera Air is to suspend its transatlantic flights to New York and Toronto from Birmingham Airport just a month after take-off.

TheBusinessDesk.com revealed three weeks ago that Primera Air had made its third cut to its transatlantic flights from Birmingham, despite the routes not having yet launched. At that time, when Primera had just cancelled the launch of its Stansted-Toronto route because it did not have enough aircraft, Birmingham Airport said it remained confident its services would be unaffected.

But today the low-cost airline has announced flights to New York will be suspended from June 21 “due the ongoing late delivery of its long-haul A321neo aircraft from Airbus”. Its Toronto route, which was due to start on June 26, will not start.

Primera Air plans to reinstate transatlantic services next year once the aircraft is available.

United Airlines axed its service to Newark last July, six months after American Airlines ended its services to New York JFK.

Primera Air stepped in with plans to fly daily to New York from Birmingham and four times a week to Boston. But in January it dropped the Birmingham-Boston route and reduced its schedule to New York to four times a week, which in May become three before today’s announcement.

But Birmingham Airport, which said it was “disappointed” by the news, emphasised the strength of demand following the latest blow to its transatlantic offer.

In a statement it said: “Since launching New York services last month, load factors have been positive, averaging 70%. This reinforces our knowledge that the demand for flights between Birmingham and North America is strong, with a market size already using Birmingham of more than 130,000 passengers.”

Primera Air’s short haul services in operation from Birmingham are unaffected. It will be contacting all customers booked on services from June 21 to give refunds or transfer onto other services.

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