Hi Bob,

I'm not quite in the middle of nowhere - we do have electricity here now!! I entirely agree with you that if you want to do a JY holiday and are not near either Gatwick or Heathrow, you have to travel to get there. I think of it as part of the whole holiday experience. With regards to the increasing cost of internal flights from up North etc, I've now booked my 11th JY holiday through Avios (old Air Miles) and used some of my points to get down to Gatwick, and also earned thousands of points for booking the holiday through them rather than through JY. I personally drive to either Glasgow or Edinburgh airport, and leave the car in the Long Stay carpark, and then fly down to Gatwick/Heathrow. Sometimes I have to stay at the airport, but now I have discovered Premier Inns, it's a breeze!

Cheers,

Hils

Hi guys,

There really aren't a huge number of our tours where Glasgow airport could service the routes that we need unfortunately. We do have some tours with Scottish options but unfortunately we get very little take up from them.

I think that answers the question fair and square! I notice that the holidays with Manchester departures seem to be fairly slow to fill up as well, so despite some of the comments on the forum the demand does seem to be quite low for regional departures. As the old saying goes, you can't please all of the people all of the time!

Cheers,

Bob

It would be just nice to have more holidays flying direct from Manchester

Margaret

Hi Will,

I think that answers the question fair and square! I notice that the holidays with Manchester departures seem to be fairly slow to fill up as well, so despite some of the comments on the forum the demand does seem to be quite low for regional departures. As the old saying goes, you can't please all of the people all of the time!

Cheers,

Bob

Bob,

Think the reason for that is that the 5 holidays going from Manchester are all long haul and people going on those holidays are the type of people that would be prepared to go south to get the hol they want.

Think the main issue is the european one week breaks were people arn't as prepared to spend a day+ travelling for a short holiday.

Of course some are but when I first travelled with JY on a european holiday (andalucia) there were around 10 travellers on the holiday from both Glasgow and East Midlands and 8 on my flight from Manchester.

Will also say the 5 long haul from Manchester are all in September or early October which isn't great planning.

Not sure about the others but the Nat Parks, Mount Rushmore, LBH isn't exactly direct as we are flying to Denver via Atlanta where we have a 2 hour stop over. May aswell gone via Heathrow then direct to Denver, was a little dissapointed when I found out.

Mick

Hi Will,

I think that answers the question fair and square! I notice that the holidays with Manchester departures seem to be fairly slow to fill up as well, so despite some of the comments on the forum the demand does seem to be quite low for regional departures. As the old saying goes, you can't please all of the people all of the time!

Cheers,

Bob

Bob,

Think the reason for that is that the 5 holidays going from Manchester are all long haul and people going on those holidays are the type of people that would be prepared to go south to get the hol they want.

Think the main issue is the european one week breaks were people arn't as prepared to spend a day+ travelling for a short holiday.

Of course some are but when I first travelled with JY on a european holiday (andalucia) there were around 10 travellers on the holiday from both Glasgow and East Midlands and 8 on my flight from Manchester.

Will also say the 5 long haul from Manchester are all in September or early October which isn't great planning.

Not sure about the others but the Nat Parks, Mount Rushmore, LBH isn't exactly direct as we are flying to Denver via Atlanta where we have a 2 hour stop over. May aswell gone via Heathrow then direct to Denver, was a little dissapointed when I found out.

Mick

It's having to trail down to Gatwick to go on a just over 2 hour flight that is my problem Mick.

Thanks:thumbup:

forgive me if I've mentioned any of these things before - but I want to make sure you understand the issues we face.

- I'm sorry that you feel that having the MAN dedicated departures in the autumn is bad planning. Our intention was to put holidays out there at a time of year when bookings are strongest so that we gave the trial the best possible chance of succeeding. I know it means that you are unlikely to be able to book more than one of these - but we don't get huge numbers of people booking 2 long haul holidays within a few months of each other in general.

- With regards to the lack of regional options - we do in general try and offer regional flights on every single tour that has flight options. If there is a tour which you think should have a regional option but doesn't then please let me know and I will look into it for you?

- You are right in saying that the National Parks flight from Manchester is indirect. Unfortunately there are no direct flights from Manchester that operate that route. When we had discussions with members of the forum back when we were planning these tours the feedback was that the convenience of starting the holiday locally outweighed the inconvenience of changing planes in the States.

We really do try and offer as many regional options as we can for you - it's in our interests after all!

In order to offer a regional departure we need all of the following ingredients to make it happen:

- flights on the right days and right kind of times to match the tour

- an airline that can provide both the inbound and outbound flight

- an airline that is group friendly

- an airline that we feel is of a satisfactory standard

when you take these factors into account you can see that we don't have an easy task!

as ever, if you have any queries we are always more than happy to answer them! We are only here for you!

Thanks

Will