It seems another carrier cannot make Cambridge Airport work, with Irish carrier CityJet to withdraw its routes from Cambridge Airport.
CityJet Fokker 50 as used on Cambridge operated routes. This Fokker 50 is at London City Airport – Image GhettoIFE.
The airline currently operates services from Cambridge to Rotterdam and Dublin. On checking the booking engine, these flights are flagged as ceasing operations from the 26th October:
Dublin Route showing closure
Amsterdam route showing closure
This will leave no commercial service left at Cambridge Airport – which will leave the airport main to handle private aircraft and business jets.
Etihad Regional (nee Darwin Airline) was the last airline to try this and fail due to poor loads. It seems that CityJet is falling the same way as an entry point to Cambridgeshire and the East of England.
Whilst the idea of operating a regional service, connecting it to hubs is a nice one is principle, there is one minor problem for Cambridge Airport – and its 29 miles down the road.
It’s called Stansted Airport – one of the largest UK Low Cost Carrier centres with regular services to various destinations to Europe with dominant carriers Ryanair and EasyJet offering services to Dublin and Amsterdam.
With competition like that… it’s not surprising that these small regional services fold.
Still, another option gone for those who liked the convenience of a local airport.
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Besides being close to Stanstead, I think another big problem Cambridge has is the lack of direct rail access. If it had a direct train to/from London then it might have some success as “London Cambridge Airport”, maybe getting a slice of the LCC market the way Southend does. Without that, then what’s the point – people in London won’t bother trekking up there and people in Cambridge might as well head south where there are more flights.
”People in Cambridge’ (of whom I am one) might just prefer a small local airport rather than Stansted Shopping Centre. Living on the south side of Cambridge (so nearer Stansted), I can leave home 45 mins before departure time for Cambridge or 2.5 hours before for Stansted. I can also avoid the shops, security queues, car park charges, M11 and EasyJet. It’s a no brainer! CityJet has no concept of Customer Sevice ( you call some far-off place) and do not care about changing flight times to stupid or once a day times. They had a chance of building up Cambridge to Amsterdam and blew it.