News: Ryanair to move Tenerife flights from north to south of island
Flights > News > # 1379 (24/07/2007)
Ryanair is moving its Tenerife flights from Tenerife North to Tenerife South this autumn.
Operations to Tenerife North airport will cease on October 14. The change will affect all passengers travelling to Tenerife on the Dublin, Shannon and Girona routes.
Commenting on the move, Ryanair’s director of scheduled revenue, Sean Coyle, said: "This change of airport has come about as a result of requests from passengers to access the southern part of the island and we are delighted to say that we have confirmed slots at Tenerife South for the upcoming winter season.”
Tenerife South is the larger of the two Tenerife airports and would be more familiar to passengers who have traditionally travelled with charter operators accessing the more popular tourist resorts on the south of the island.
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Is this an example of Ryanair moving its flights closer to where the majority of visitors to Tenerife actually stay, or is it a simple case of the right deal being available to the right place at the right time?
When it was first suggested that Ryanair were interest in operating cheap flights to Tenerife North, this looked like an obvious choice for them, as they would gain access to one of the most popular leisure destinations, but still be able to play the game by their rules and use a different airport from most of their rivals. However, as we've already seen this year when Ryanair started offering cheap flights to Palma in Majorca and also to Alicante on the Spanish mainland, airports which Ryanair previously avoided due to high charges have suddenly become flavour of the month. Also, in the Spanish capital Madrid, spare capacity has become available since the opening up of the new ultramodern terminal 4, creating the opportunity for both Ryanair and Easyjet to set up a base there.
Almost all airports in Spain are still managed by the national operator AENA, but local management appear to have the flexibility to offer Ryanair slots at sufficiently favourable rates. Tenerife North might seem out of the way to passengers arriving from the British Isles, but it is the closest airport to Santa Cruz, the largest city on the island. As there are a considerable number of domestic flights to Tenerife from within Spain, most which operate into Tenerife North, the cost advantages for Ryanair will be much smaller than they are in most of the other alternative airports that they operate into. For the time being, Ryanair do not operate any Tenerife flights from the UK, but with this year seeing new flights to major Spanish hubs from several different UK airports, it looks like it is just a matter of time before this situation changes.
