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Diminutive airport, Blackpool, has lost a high-profile court battle against budget airline, Jet2, for the second time in seven months. The lawsuit, settled at the High Court, centred on an incident in October 2010, in which airport chiefs refused to allow two Jet2-branded planes to land at the Lancashire hub.

“This is a great victory for our customers”, explained Philip Meeson, the airline’s fiery boss. “Jet2 is here to stay”. The carrier celebrated its recent victory by announcing a new route from Blackpool to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, due to take off in summer 2012. The flight is the carrier's eighth destination from Blackpool.

Blackpool’s “serious breach” of its contract with Jet2 concerns the hub’s opening hours, which are much shorter than the 24hr schedules operated at Leeds, Glasgow, and East Midlands, three of Jet2’s larger bases in the UK. The northwest hub, in a bid to save money, has begun sending its staff home at 9pm. Delayed aircraft may be directed south, to Manchester Airport.

Jet2 claims that its planes have always arrived outside Blackpool’s new operating hours, and that the hub’s “sudden and unilateral decision” to close at 9pm was intended to “interfere” with the carrier’s business in the popular holiday resort.

Responding, Judge Mackie QC said that Blackpool Airport’s current financial situation does not permit the hub to “pick and choose” which contracts to honour, and which to discard. However, unless Jet2 is willing to make a few concessions concerning its flight times from Blackpool, the airline’s contract may soon be worthless. Blackpool Airport owes an estimated £2.5m to its debtors, a figure that can only have increased in the wake of Jet2’s recent lawsuit.

Flights from Blackpool to Jersey and Belfast and to three Spanish destinations, Alicante, Malaga, and Murcia, are on sale today, for travel in summer 2012. Completing the airline’s schedules for 2012 are routes from the northwest to Faro in Portugal, and to the Balearic Island of Majorca.

Atlantic Holidays, a major package holiday provider, has announced plans to fly from Blackpool Airport to the Portuguese archipelago, Madeira, from May 23 2011. The route, which will operate until September 26, will take travellers to the city of Funchal on Madeira’s south coast.

Located in the North Atlantic, Madeira is one of the most affluent regions of Portugal. The island is famed for its temperate climate, sandy beaches, and basaltic peaks, formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity. However, Madeira’s most striking feature is also one of the first sights that holidaymakers see – Madeira Airport. The hub’s runway is suspended 70m above the Atlantic Ocean by hundreds of vertical columns.

Atlantic Holidays’ decision to fly from Blackpool is part of a UK-wide expansion of its services to Portuguese destinations. The firm will offer flights from thirteen more airports in summer 2011, including Bournemouth, Kent Manston, and Durham. The holiday firm claims that it is the largest operator on routes to Madeira, the Azores, and Porto Santo, a tiny island and a “closely guarded secret", to quote Atlantic's website.

Sales chief at Atlantic, Dino Toouli, said that his company is “confident that Madeira will prove extremely popular” with travellers in the northwest. Mr. Toouli noted that planes leased from seasoned airline, Monarch, would be used on the route, specifically, the Airbus A320. The A320 can carry around 150 passengers per flight.

Atlantic Holidays is currently offering 7-night breaks in Madeira from Blackpool Airport. Travellers are offered a choice of accommodation, from the three-star hotel, Dom Pedro Garajau, to the luxury Pestana Grand, to the west of Madeira’s capital, Funchal.

Tickets for Blackpool-Madeira are available for purchase on Atlantic's booking page.

Earlier this month, Blackpool Airport was on the losing end of a High Court battle with budget airline, Jet2. The airport, which runs flights to the Isle of Man, Spain, and Italy, was defending a decision to send staff members home after 9pm, forcing Jet2 to divert late night journeys to Manchester Airport. The move, said airline bosses, was designed to “interfere” with Jet2’s operations in the northwest.

The airline was granted a temporary injunction by High Court judges, ordering Blackpool Airport to accept flights well into the night. However, Paul Rankin, boss at the northwest hub, intimated that Jet2 was being intentionally belligerent, by “refusing” to apply for permission to operate after hours flights from the holiday resort. Paul also noted that Blackpool was closing early to reduce losses, which currently stand at £2.5m.

Closer to the present, Jet2 is now seeking a permanent extension to opening hours at Blackpool Airport. Ironically, success could seriously hurt the airline’s business in the northwest: Blackpool is currently mulling over 85 redundancies, which means that the airport has neither the capital nor the manpower to open later than normal. Forcing the hub to exist beyond its means could run it into the ground, throwing Jet2 out on its ear.

Blackpool’s solicitors have blamed Jet2 for the airport’s financial woes, stating that the airline has not increased flights to and from the northwest, as per the terms of its contract with the hub. Responding, Jet2’s lawyer, Philip Shepherd, said that airport bosses have done nothing to promote the airline’s business. Consequently, there is no demand for new flights in the northwest.

Shepherd noted that Jet2 and Blackpool have endured a “strained” relationship for a good half-decade, following the departure of Ryanair in 2005. The most recent row appears to have erupted on a weekend at the end of October, when, following a flight diversion, Jet2 had to transport a group of angry passengers from Manchester, back to Blackpool.

Although most supermarkets and department stores have had their baubles out since the middle of October, the majority of Brits will have only just realised that November is ending, and Christmas is just 29 days away.

The next month will bring out the best, and indeed, the worst, in the human race, as people all over the globe indulge in shopping marathons and pitched battles with pine trees that just wanted to be left outside, before the New Year leaves us wondering how we’ve become so tubby.

From December 22, children in the northwest will be given the opportunity to meet ‘Santa in the sky,’ aboard a special 70-minute flight from Blackpool Airport. The event, which was created by UK tour operator, Omega Holidays, will lead young passengers on a quest to find the jolly fat bloke, and bring him aboard the plane.

Whether the plane will be in the air when St. Nick is hauled aboard is debatable, but given the inherent danger of opening aircraft doors mid-flight, it’s much more likely that Santa will emerge from behind a seat when he (and his reindeer entourage) are discovered. Nevertheless, pilots will be ‘keeping an eye out’ for the bearded one on the aeroplane’s radar.

The flight is similar to the Northern Lights tour that operates from Doncaster Robin Hood, in that the aeroplane takes off, but doesn’t actually travel to another airport; rather, it reaches a pre-set destination, and then turns around. However, the end of the tour is perhaps the most exciting part for passengers, as Santa will reward the children who helped find him with presents.

Pre-flight, guests can enjoy a 45-minute entertainment show, and meet St. Nick’s elves, who will be on day-release from the toy workshop, helping at the airport’s check-in desk.

The success of The Tangerines, otherwise known as Blackpool F.C., has had a positive effect on the local aviation industry, according to Noel Hayes, chairperson at Isle of Man airline, Manx2.

Mr Hayes claims that the team’s promotion to the English Premier League has been “welcomed by hundreds” of football fans on the island, many of which regularly make the trip between the Isle of Man Airport in Ronaldsway, and the Bloomfield Road Stadium in Blackpool. So great is demand for flights from the island to the northwest of England, that Manx2 has opened up a new home at Blackpool Airport, its first ever base outside the Isle of Man and Ireland.

Manx2 has been a guest at Blackpool since 2006, when it launched a “shuttle service” between the holiday resort and its homeland. The airline initially put on two daily flights, but that number has increased to four a day (and three on a Saturday) in recent years, as the route’s popularity soared.

Despite the carrier's ongoing presence at the Lancashire hub, Manx2’s recent expansion marks the first time that the commuter airline has based crew and aircraft, a single L-410 Turbolet built by Czech company, LET, at Blackpool on a permanent basis. “We have attracted many visitors from the northwest region who choose to use Blackpool as a convenient gateway to the Isle of Man,” Noel Hayes explained. The chairman also noted the popularity of a route to Belfast from Ronaldsway, which is attracting customers from both sides of the Irish Sea.

However, the coming winter could upset Manx2’s plans for its Blackpool-Isle of Man route. The airline was forced to ground all eight of its aircraft on Thursday last week, after “storm force” winds ripped through the island, uprooting trees and creating enormous waves.

On Sunday, Blackpool International Airport unveiled a brand new route to Dublin complete with a lavish celebration inside the main terminal. The flight will operate daily from the Lancashire site, under a franchise agreement between Aer Lingus and Aer Arran.

Blackpool is perhaps best known for its winter illuminations, its child-friendly funfairs, and that great iron tower, something that most northerners see before they are ten years old. The airport is an afterthought, if it is mentioned at all.

An important Jet2 hub, Blackpool Airport provides a gateway to some of Britain’s many island communities, including Jersey, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. Blackpool is not solely a domestic airport, however, and the site maintains links with a number of continental destinations, such as Tenerife, Malaga in Spain, and Faro in southern Portugal.

Blackpool’s new route has proved particularly popular with airport bosses, largely because it connects the northwest with destinations on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, albeit indirectly. Airport chief, Paul Rankin, was delighted with Aer Lingus’s latest investment – ‘It is fantastic news for our passengers...The new route will enable them to link into Dublin’s transatlantic network. They will be able to book straight through from Blackpool International to JFK Airport in New York.’ Blackpool organised a day of Irish-themed events on the 28th of March, including Guinness tasting and entertainment by an Irish dancing troupe.

Blackpool Airport is currently offering free parking for all outbound passengers, up to a maximum of 15 days.

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Passengers flying from Blackpool Airport will be pleased to hear that flights to Bulgaria are being introduced once again after a break of four years. As from August 9 next year, passengers will be able to fly to Bourgas in Bulgaria on one of the flights that will be running once a week. The new flights will be managed by Balkan Holidays and will be departing from the South Shore terminal.

The flights were cancelled back in 2006 after being run by Book2Go, and officials at the airport think the reintroduction of the route is going to be a hit. Sue Kendrick, the customer relations and communications manager, said that it had been “sorely missed” and that many people had requested that it be reinstated. She also stated that Bulgaria has great sandy beaches and amazing weather, and that because it is a euro-free zone it is also a lot cheaper than many other alternative countries. For example, a three-course meal can cost as little as £10 a person.

It has been a good year for Blackpool Airport as it has seen passenger numbers on the rise. This bucks the trend of the majority of UK airports which have seen falling numbers as cash-strapped passengers decide to stay at home during the recession.

One reason that it has been doing so well recently is down to its new parking scheme. This has meant that passengers over 16 travelling from the airport have to pay an extra £10 surcharge, and in return they are granted up to 15 days free parking. Despite proving controversial for some, the scheme is clearly proving popular.

Blackpool Airport was celebrating recently after it was awarded the honour of being voted the best airport in the UK. The survey was carried out by consumer group Which?, and was an attempt to get an overall picture of the state of the UK’s airports.

The survey was quite substantial, with Which? interviewing over 9,000 airport users across the country to get a good general impression of the country’s opinions. Interviewees were asked to rate the airports that they had used in the last year on the basis of their experiences, and to say whether they would recommend them or not.

Blackpool Airport, which handles flights to fewer than 20 destinations, came top of the list with an 80% approval rating, whilst London City Airport was a very close second with 78%. Amongst the best features of the airport were the five-star ratings that it got for the check-in experience and the overall experience, which took into consideration factors such as staff and design.

Other airports to perform well were Doncaster, Exeter and Southampton, which led the editor of Which?, Lorna Cowan, to say that its members “prefer the experience of flying from smaller regional airports”.

But if regional airports got the higher ratings, there are no prizes for guessing which airports got the worst results in the survey.

The winner of the wooden spoon was Heathrow Terminal 1, which came in with a 31% approval rating, the worst in the country. Terminals 2, 3 and 4 did not perform much better, and the Gatwick terminals were also down at the bottom of the list. Somewhat surprisingly, however, Heathrow Terminal 5 didn’t do so badly, with an approval rating of 54%.

When a spokesman for Blackpool Airport revealed last week that, from the beginning of next year, passengers would be charged ten pounds in exchange for free parking during their holiday, nobody could have guessed what impact this would have in such a short space of time. The ten pound passenger charge was introduced in an attempt to increase funding and attract more travellers from across the north of England.

However, it now seems that the plan has backfired, since Ryanair, the extremely popular budget airline, has announced that it is set to halt all of its services which usually depart from the airport. A spokesman for the airline described the day of the announcement as a “black day” for Blackpool. The deputy chief executive for Ryanair, Michael Cawley, revealed his disgust at Blackpool’s decision to introduce the charge. He believes it is an “extremely regressive step” which will see passengers forking out far more money than is necessary.

The flights from Ryanair will be stopped on the fourth of January, 2009, which is the day before the charge begins. The move will worry the officials at Blackpool, since over one million passengers have travelled on planes provided by the airline since Ryanair launched routes departing from the airport back in the early part of 2003. David Kershaw, the chief executive of the airport, believed that the ten pound charge would “attract new airlines” but he could never have imagined that these new airlines would have to replace popular ones such as Ryanair.

Last week, Blackpool International Airport announced that it is to start charging passengers ten pounds. Although they will subsequently be offered free parking for up to fifteen days from the day of departure, the scheme is a controversial one. The ten pound charge is part of a new plan announced by the airport bosses, which aims to increase the popularity of the airport across the northern region of England.

The charge will be introduced in the beginning of January and will be charged under the title of ‘Airport Development Fee’. Only those passengers aged sixteen and over will be subject to the charge and David Kershaw, the chief executive of Blackpool International, believes that the fee will help to develop the airport.

Kershaw was keen to divert the focus away from the implications of the ten pound charge to the benefits of free parking. He revealed that Blackpool will become the only international airport in the country to provide free parking for passengers and “a fresh marketing drive” will also ensure that many more passengers are attracted to the “hassle-free” airport.

Some people have expressed concern over what exactly the ten pound charge will be used for. David Kershaw revealed that it will support “investment from the owners to improve facilities” and help in the fight to attract new airlines to provide a wider range of routes, which in turn will attract more passengers from across the north of England. The airport bosses also announced a two million pound investment scheme which will upgrade the runways and generally improve the facilities available to passengers.