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The regional airline Airlinair announced on Monday a new route for Poitiers Biard Airport, linking the Poitou-Charentes capital with Nice.

The new route which starts in May 2009 will carry passengers to the Mediterranean sunshine in under two hours, and for a one-way cost of 99€.  Airlinair commercial director Bruno Lierman insisted the new route is not an experiment and will remain a permanent fixture, although he also pointed out that the company do not expect to make a profit in the first year of operation.

Airlinair who are a partner of Air France-KLM will be operating one flight per week on a Saturday, with a 9h20 departure time getting passengers to Nice by 11h.  The return flight leaves at 11h30 and arrives back in Poitiers by 13h05.  The route opens between 16 May to 25 July, and again between 29 August and 12 September.  The ATR aeroplane that will be used for the route can carry between 40 and 50 passengers (depending on seating configuration), using two turbo-prop engines which are said to be two-times more fuel efficient than their jet propelled counterparts.

Françoise Villain, directrice générale of the Chamber of Commerce, is keen to increase traffic to Poitiers-Biard, and revealed that she is in talks with Ryanair about adding a further two destinations in the coming year, one from Ireland and another linking the town with Barcelona in Spain, although the latter will require some investment from stakeholders such as the local communes and the regional council.

The Chamber of Commerce has received assurances from Ryanair over the continuation of a winter service to London, despite a drop of 12% in passenger numbers compared to 2007.  The figures which were taken as at 31 October, showed that the route had carried 60,000 passengers, although the disappointing result was partly down to the suspension of the route last winter.

The Birmingham route which opened in June registered an encouraging 15,500 passengers up to the same point, with this representing 73% capacity, slightly down on the target of 75%.  The Birmingham route will re-open in April 2009.

In other airport related news, Dominique Bussereau last week re-stated his aim for the closure of La Rochelle airport and the relocation of services to Saint Agnant airport down the road at Rochefort.  This depends however on the long-debated A831 motorway being built between Rochefort and Fontenay-le-Comte, to ensure the journey time to La Rochelle is no more than 30 minutes.