My View, Steve Gill: Flights to ski resorts now set to take off

It is hard to believe that the school summer holidays are almost over.
Stephen Gill CEO of Peel Airports Management and local skiier Mason Flannery from Sprotborough celebrate the launch of new flights to the ski resorts of Europe at Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster.Stephen Gill CEO of Peel Airports Management and local skiier Mason Flannery from Sprotborough celebrate the launch of new flights to the ski resorts of Europe at Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster.
Stephen Gill CEO of Peel Airports Management and local skiier Mason Flannery from Sprotborough celebrate the launch of new flights to the ski resorts of Europe at Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster.

And while many families will be preparing for going back to school those who are not tied to school breaks will be heading off during September to enjoy some late summer sun.

We’ve enjoyed a busy summer period and celebrated the airport’s busiest month on record.

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In July our passenger numbers increased by 42 per cent from the previous year to 141,155, with the airport on track for more than 1.3 million passengers for the year.

It’s not just the sunshine breaks that we are focusing on.

Our partnership with Flybe means that we now have a number of business routes to major European hubs.

The routes that we have from Doncaster now include Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam and we are also now getting ready to see skiers using Doncaster Sheffield Airport to enjoy taking to the piste!

We welcomed a young Olympic freestyle hopeful, Mason Flannery, to the airport last week to help us to celebrate our newest skiing route to Chambery which takes off later this year (December 17).

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Passengers who were heading out for some summer sun were surprised to see us fully kitted up in our skiing gear with skis in hand to officially launch the airport’s links to the big European ski resorts.

We are delighted to be able to offer skiing routes to popular destinations this winter which is great news for our passengers.

Our Flybe route to Chambery, the gateway to Alpine ski resorts, starts in less than three months and our new route with WizzAir to Cluj in Romania started a few weeks ago.

For too long skiers like Mason have had to leave the region to pursue their active breaks but now we have a range of options for them to fly out locally.

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Given its proximity to Mont Blanc, Chambery offers Yorkshire winter sports enthusiasts’ easy access to some of the finest slopes and facilities the world has to offer.

Our WizzAir destinations also provide access to extremely popular ski resorts in Romania and Bulgaria.

Flights will start just in time for Christmas from December 17, 2016, flying once a week on Saturdays going on sale from today with one-way fares available for booking at www.flybe.com from £44.99 including taxes and charges. Other winter programme destinations include Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Dublin, Faro, Malaga, Alicante and Jersey.

Being able to offer winter sports destinations as part of our winter programme is a great addition to our offer to customers alongside all the traditional getaway favourites like Alicante, Faro and Malaga,