easyJet will, however, add a new route to its offerings
easyJet has axed two popular routes from its network, with the airline removing them from the schedules as of March 28. Passengers will no longer be able to fly to Paris Orly from Bristol or Manchester airports.
However, the airline has also announced it’ll be running a new service from Southampton airport to Paris Orly, running twice a week from March 31. Routes from Bristol and Manchester to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport will remain in place.
Speaking to The Sun, an EasyJet representative said: “Following a review of the routes, easyJet can confirm that from 28 March it will no longer operate flights from Paris Orly to Manchester and Bristol. We concentrate our efforts on maintaining and developing routes which prove most popular with customers, focusing on offering routes with the greatest demand.
“We continue to serve our customers in Bristol and Manchester with daily flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle, offering connections to over 80 destinations from Bristol and 88 destinations from Manchester across Europe and North Africa.”
Paris Orly is a smaller airport than Charles de Gaulle, and is in the south of Paris away from the centre. Some customers choose this airport as it’s a regional hub, so it tends to be quieter and can avoid some of the city’s traffic. However, getting to the city centre can take longer.
The axed routes offered fares for as little as £17.99 each way, with flights from Manchester taking one hour 45 minutes, and flights from Bristol taking one hour 25 minutes.
easyJet isn’t the only airline looking to make cuts to French routes. After a tax hike at French airports last autumn, Ryanair announced they were looking at cutting down routes to regional French airports, although Parisian hubs were not thought to be among them.
In a statement, Ryanair’s chief commercial officer Jason McGuinness said: “Ryanair is now reviewing its French schedules and expects to cut capacity to/from regional French airports by up to 50 percent from January 2025 if the French government proceeds with its short-sighted plan to triple passenger taxes.
“The impact of increased passenger taxes will be most damaging for regional France which depends on competitive access costs”, he added.
