Spoke too soon about AirWales - they've gone out of business

Oops, yesterday I posted about the new low cost airline AirWales that flying into Rennes and they've ceased flying already !

Martin Selway (whose Brittany Gite is close to ours on the other side of Josselin) pointed out to me after reading my blog posting that Air Wales's website currently said:

Important Notice to all Air Wales passengers

Please note that with effect from Sunday April 23rd Air Wales have announced cessation of passenger services on all routes.

All passengers holding bookings with Air Wales for departures from April 24th 2006 onwards will be provided with a refund through the original payment method. To request a refund please contact our Reservations centre on 0870 777 3131 / IRE 1800 654193 and we will fully refund all monies paid.

A number of Air Wales' services have now been replaced by new carriers;

Cardiff- Newcastle - Eastern Airways
Cardiff - Brussels- Eastern Airways
Cardiff- Cork - Aer Arann

For services from Cardiff International Airport to Jersey and Paris CDG we recommend the following alternative services.

Cardiff- Rennes - Alternative services operate from Cardiff to Lorient with Aer Arann.
Cardiff- Jersey - Alternative services operate from Bristol to Jersey with Air Southwest or Flybe.
Cardiff- Paris CDG - Alternative services operate from Bristol to Paris CDG with BA Connect.
Exeter and Newquay - Cork - Alternative services operate from Bristol to Cork with Aer Arann.

For passengers holding reservations with Air Wales / BmiBaby to travel to Paris CDG please note that an automatic refund will be processed by booking agents bmibaby to the original payment methods. All queries regarding this should be forwarded to BmiBaby on 0870 264 2229 quoting your booking reference number and passenger name.

Air Wales apologise for any inconvenience caused. Should you have any queries please don't hesitate to contact us.

Now a few hours later, their site simply says:

With effect from Sunday 23rd April Air Wales has ceased all passenger operations. Please be assured that we are continuing to administer full refunds for all passengers affected.

I guess it's my own fault for writing the blog entry about AirWales a couple of weeks ago and not checking it before I posted it ...

This evening was spent with going through all the travel options for our French holiday website, removing AirWales, and checking that all the other routes still existed !

In doing so I found a new budget airline destination, Angers, which is about 3 hours drive from our Gite. FlyBe operate into there from Southampton as do AerArran from London Luton, Manchester and Cork.

Better do my research more thoroughly next time ...