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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.