Irish airline CityJet will stop flying Air France’s Dublin-to-Paris service as the larger carrier has opted to operate the route itself from October.
CityJet has also confirmed that it will axe its London City Airport-Paris Orly and Nantes flights from next month.
The Irish airline operates a Dublin-Paris Charles de Gaulle service under what it called a “wet-lease” agreement with Air France. This means that Air France sells the tickets and collects the cash from passengers, but pays CityJet to use its aircraft and provide crews to actually provide the flights.
Air France is taking the service back in-house, which means that the French airline will continue to operate the Dublin-Paris route but use its own craft and crew rather than hiring those of CityJet.
“It is an Air France decision to determine which routes on which to use its own aircraft and wet lease capacity,” CityJet said in a statement.
Winter season
The airline plans to drop services that it operates from London City Airport to both Paris Orly and Nantes airports.“CityJet took the decision late last summer to end the London City to Paris Orly from the end of March 2017. Following an internal network evaluation it was decided to end operation of this route from the end of the winter season.” Capacity and competition are growing on both routes.
CityJet will revive its service from London to Toulon, and introduce flights from London City Airport to Avignon.
The airline is concentrating on building its wet lease business. It recently announced that it was buying Copenhagen-based Cimber, which flies regional services in Scandinavia, for its current owner SAS.
