A couple have criticised airline Easyjet after it announced it would be cancelling its route to Belfast from East Midlands Airport. One passenger said the move the means they may now have to travel by ferry.
David Smith regularly used the service to visit his wife who worked in the Northern Ireland capital. The pair would then often travel back on the same route in between stays at home in Shepshed, Leicestershire, but now their plans have been changed, reports Leicestershire Live.
That’s after Easyjet confirmed it would no longer be running the service after March 25. It’s a decision that’s left David and his wife disappointed. “It’s a real inconvenience to us and it’s becoming more of a problem with airlines now,” David said. “I used to go with Flybe and then they went bust and was forced to go to Birmingham.
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“Easyjet arrived and was good, but now they’re going too. It’s just a nuisance.”
The Easyjet route to Belfast was established last summer with the airline providing services on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. For David, his wife is set to come back from Belfast this Friday (March 18) for a few days before she’s due to return on March 28. However, the pair soon realised there was a problem when no new flights were listed beyond March 25.
“It was bad enough that the flights were only every other day, but I was hoping that they might increase the flights, not stop them altogether,” said David.
The decision means the couple are now left with trying to find alternate routes to Belfast in the future. It could even see them travelling by ferry.
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“If we’re going to fly, we’ve got to go to Birmingham once again, but the traffic is pretty bad around the NEC and I don’t know if I want to go through that. There’s the parking charges too. At the minute we use the shuttle bus to get to the airport, so it’s always been easy for us. Now, we’re looking at the ferry as it’s something we will have to consider.
“If we do that, we’ll have to go to Liverpool and that’s more money, too. It’s a real nuisance.”
In a statement, Easyjet confirmed that the service would be ending following a review into their current routes.
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“We continually review our flying schedule so that we can best serve the customer demand across our UK and wider European network. Unfortunately, at present, we have not able to extend our East Midlands to Belfast route into the summer season,” said a spokesman.
“We will continue to review any opportunities to serve our customers from East Midlands [Airport].”
