The first flights to the Lake District for 25 years are starting in June
Hikers, cyclists and lovers of the great outdoors will be able to fly direct to the Lake District this summer when scheduled passenger flights to the national park resume after a 25-year hiatus.
Services to Carlisle Lake District Airport have been on the cards for several years but today it announced that commercial and business flights will restart on June 3.
Full details of airlines and routes are yet to be revealed but the airport, owned by the Stobart Group since 2009, has identified London, Belfast and Dublin as key connections. It is believed flights will be operated in the first instance by Stobart Air, which runs scheduled services under the brands Aer Lingus Regional and Flybe.
The nearest operational airport to the Unesco World Heritage site is currently Manchester, around a 90-minute drive to the south.
“Carlisle Lake District Airport will have a huge impact on Cumbria’s visiting economy and is also a key strategic business asset for the county,” said Graham Haywood, executive director of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, which has invested £4.95m in the development of the airport.
Andrew Tinkler, Stobart’s CEO, previously outlined the firm’s ambitions for the region.
“If you look at the tourism in this area, it's massive - probably second biggest after London - so I think through the summer it'd be very busy,” he said. The Lakes District National Park attracts around 18 million visitors a year.
Tinkler said passenger services would come to Carlisle, which typically caters for private aircraft, helicopters and military planes, in May 2016, when he targeted spring 2017 as a start date.
Carlisle Lake District Airport opened in the Thirties as an RAF base before being sold to local authorities in 1960. It had several owners before the Stobart Group stepped in.
There have been many failed efforts to establish passenger flights. British European Airways briefly flew from the airport to the Isle of Man and Belfast in 1946 and 1947; Court Line Aviation offered flights from London between 1967 and 1969; Air Ecosse launched services in the early Eighties; and in 1993 New Air began flights from Carlisle to Stansted, but collapsed after just two months.
Last summer, the Lakes received a boost when Unesco awarded it World Heritage status, the first UK national park to do so.
