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Winter flight campaign flying high

PILAR PELLICER

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The online winter flight petition launched by the Bulletin just under  a week ago has proved a success and caught the eye of the media and travel industry in the UK.Yesterday, the number of people to have signed the petition over the past six days was nearing the 800 mark, so the petition has been attracting an average of 100 signatures a day and the momentum does not appear to be dropping.
And, what has proved interesting is that not all of the people signing the petition are UK residents either here in Majorca, although there is also a growing  movement  in Minorca for more winter flights, or in the UK,  in particular  Scotland, but also  local Spanish nationals.
Although as petitions go, the figure may not appear staggering, it has received the backing of a number of major local businesses and hotels and also caught the eye of the media in the UK.
The Daily Telegraph  picked  up on the winter  flight campaign and a number of the main travel industry publications have also contacted the Bulletin for further information about the petition. The Majorcan Tourist Board is also monitoring  developments because it would like to see more winter flight connections between the Balearics and the UK and Scandinavia - during the five months of winter, there are no direct flights from Scotland to the Balearics and many Scandinavians have the same problem.
Primarily, holiday home owners are the most affected because they can only gain easy access to their properties in the Balearics for six months of the year.
But, then there are those who still have family members in the UK, or visa versa, and are left more or  less cut off from their relatives during the winter, unless they are travelling to the south of England and then there  are those who simply want to either go on holiday to the UK,  Scotland  and Ireland or  come  to the Balearics.
At least, there are more hotels open in the UK  during the winter, but getting to northern England, Scotland and Ireland on a direct flight is virtually impossible and the connecting flight options are not only time consuming, but costly.
The Bulletin decided to launch the on line petition now in order to keep the campaign going over the summer.
Yes, the sun may be shining and there are now plenty of flight connections from all over the UK, but unless action is taken now, winter will be here again and airlines will be pulling their connections.
Monarch and Jet2 are apparently going to expand and extend their winter flight programme, but so far, no one has mentioned operating out of Scotland.

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