Newquay flights set to resume

Airline flights to and from Newquay Cornwall Airport are due to resume from tomorrow (Saturday).

The airport has been shut to allow a transfer from Ministry of Defence to Cornwall County Council ownership on December 1.

It has now been granted a new civilian licence by theCivil Aviation Authority following inspections this week.

Air Traffic Control is open from today and it is expected that flights will resume on Saturday, an airport statement said.

But passengers are advised to contact their airlines.

Colin Jarvis, deputy director of planning, transportation and estates, said: "Taking over the running of the aerodrome from the MoD was an enormously complex project, firstly because the aerodrome was treated as a ‘Greenfield' site by the Civil Aviation Authority, which has meant we have had to build an entirely new aerodrome.

"Secondly the project has been carried out on a live airfield, where we continued to maintain daily civilian flights, rather than a complete closure for a period of months, whilst construction was carried out."

Cornwall County Council executive member for the economy Andrew Mitchell said: "We are obviously delighted that we have achieved certification and designation from the Civil Aviation Authority and are now able to reopen the airport to commercial flights."

He added:"I would like to thank all our passengers for their patience and support during our temporary closure.

"I appreciate being transferred by road to alternative airports will have inconvenienced them and I am very grateful for their tolerance."

Airport operations director Al Titterington said: "It's all systems go now and I'm really looking forward to being able to welcome our passengers to their new civil airport.

We have some of the best aerodrome facilities in the country with modern state of the art equipment in which to safely manage flight operations and an excellent operations team I am proud to be leading."

Mike Coombes, deputy chief executive of Air Southwest, said: "This is fantastic news. We know that our customers have been inconvenienced over the past three weeks, and we would like to thank them for bearing with us.

"We have been working closely with the team at Newquay Airport to make sure that we kept disruption to a minimum throughout the time of the closure, and we're delighted that our Newquay flights can now return to normal.

"We're particularly pleased that the airport has re-opened in time for the festive season, allowing our customers to take advantage of the vital, year-round air links to and from Cornwall."

He added: "As Cornwall's own airline, Air Southwest operates eight routes from Newquay year-round including four flights a day, seven days a week to London Gatwick. From Saturday we will also be starting a winter ski service to Grenoble, further strengthening the number of destinations available with Air Southwest from Newquay."

With permission from Travelmole