The UK’s Monarch Airlines is looking to introduce ski routes to Friedrichshafen airport in southern Germany for the coming winter.
Monarch Airlines is a UK-based scheduled leisure airline operating from six bases in the UK – Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Luton, where it is based. The airline operates flights to holiday destinations principally around the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands – including Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Italy, Madeira, Portugal, Spain and Turkey – and to ski destinations during the winter.
The newly introduced, six times weekly flights will run from Gatwick and Manchester from December until April 2014. Friedrichshafen is a 90-minute transfer by coach, car or train to ski resorts in Switzerland, Austria, Leichtenstein and Germany, including St Anton, Lech, Zurs and Flims-Laax.
Monarch managing director, Kevin George, said: ‘After successfully launching our new scheduled flights to ski destinations last winter 12/13, we are keen to highlight our products and services to ski and snowboard travellers who are beginning to think about their winter holiday for this year.
‘Working with a key ski destination airport such as Friedrichshafen provides our great ski offering to customers.’ More than 50,000 skiers used Friedrichshafen as their gateway to the Alps last winter.
Monarch is currently undertaking an expansion programme that will see its fleet grow in size from 32 aircraft in 2012, to 38 during this financial year to October 2013. The airline recently took delivery of two new Airbus A320 aircraft.
With the addition, Monarch became the first UK airline to operate aircraft fitted with Airbus Sharklets. The enhancements to the wingtips are claimed to save fuel, increase performance, lower carbon emissions and improve payload by up to 450kg. The Sharklets cut down on aerodynamic drag by helping to reduce the spiral shaped vortices that are formed at the wingtips of any aircraft during flight.
