Bermuda Budget Carrier Zoom Airlines a Step Closer to Starting UK Flights

Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website on 27 March

Hamilton, Bermuda: Budget carrier, Zoom Airlines, has moved a step closer to starting twice-weekly flights between the United Kingdom, Bermuda and New York after being granted a licence here, officials said. Jonathan Hinkles, managing director of Zoom Airlines, told reporters that his company hoped to launch ticket sales “within the next two weeks” after gaining the approval of Bermuda’s Air Transport Licensing Board (ATLB).

The new flights will give passengers their first alternative to British Airways (BA) on the direct Bermuda to London Gatwick route – and BA said it welcomed the competition. Zoom, a Scottish sister company to the Canadian airline of the same name, still needs an operating licence from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to begin running the route.

But Hinkles said he was confident that the low-fare Boeing 767- 300ER flights could start as early as June. “We are working in the final stages now of getting one more bit of approval from the CAA here which would enable us to start ticket sales before we have our operating licence,” he said. “As soon as we have done that we can start selling tickets.”

The news was welcomed by Bermuda’s tourism and business leaders. Mike Winfield, chairman of the Bermuda Hotel Association, said: “We welcome the competitive environment. We are also very loyal and supportive of BA. The only thing we would have liked to have seen from BA is a more competitive airfare so maybe this will result in that. It’s a longstanding policy of this government to introduce competitive air services and that’s certainly a position that the hotels support.”

Hotelier David Dodwell, the Shadow Tourism Minister, said: “It’s good. Competition is good. I don’t think it’s going to impact British Airways.

“There will be enough traffic and enough loyalty so that in my view it won’t impact them.”

Diane Gordon, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said: “I’m sure that our members are going to be delighted with it if it’s approved. It’s going to offer the business traveller plus the community here certainly another option other than just BA. It could open up a lot of additional doors.”

BA spokeswoman Sallie Singleton said: “As we are a world-wide airline we compete in almost every destination in the world so we are quite used to competition and we welcome competition.

“We hope that this new competition will mean an expansion to the UK market and that can only be of benefit to Bermuda.” Austin Thomas, chairman of the ATLB, said feedback from the public to the Zoom proposal had been positive. “Clearly we did not have anything to cause us great concern with regard to negative reports.”

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