The battle for Balearic skies takes a new twist

Granted, the outlook for the summer is not great, summer holiday bookings for the Balearics are down in the United Kingdom and up for Turkey, but perhaps the no-frills airlines know something we do not and the local tourism authorities prefer to ignore. The no-frills battle for supremacy on routes between the UK and Palma is about to enter a new era with Bmi british midland announcing yesterday that it is to launch a new no-frills airline base at East Midlands Airport. The new airline will have a separate identity operating services to Palma, as well as Malaga, Barcelona, Alicante and Faro from March 23 with tickets being sold on the internet. Bmi's new airline will become the fourth major no frills operator in the UK, competing with Ryanair, easyJet and Go, the latter two of which already fly to the Balearics. EasyJet dominates the Majorca flight programme with its new daily, Gatwick route about to start in February accompanying its already hectic Luton to Palma service. Since the airline industry was hit by the September 11 crisis, all carriers have suffered, apart from easyJet and Ryanair and the attraction of being able to book well in advance on the internet has proved to be a successful formula. No-frills airlines and the internet appear to have been made for each other.