MEMORIAL PLANNED
A thanksgiving service to celebrate the life of Esprit Holidays chairman and ABTA board member Bob Moore will be held at All Saints Church, Odiham, Hampshire on March 18 at 3pm. Bob’s widow Meg will host a reception at the Officers’ Mess at RAF Odiham after the service. All those planning to attend should contact Esprit on 01252 625177 by March 12.
OPEN SKIES REJECTED
The US has rejected UK Government proposals to liberalise the transatlantic aviation market (Travel Weekly January 27). The UK team proposed the gradual phasing in of open skies on condition the US domestic market was opened up to UK carriers.
The US has rejected this proposal, claiming the UK demands would need new legislation and would therefore take too long to meet an open-skies deadline. US officials were also unhappy that viable Gatwick slots were not being made available.
A UK Government spokeswoman said more talks were planned, but no dates had been set.
JEA BIDS FOR ROUTE
Jersey European Airways has applied to take over KLM UK’s Stansted-Guernsey service when the Dutch carrier axes the route next month (Travel Weekly February 17). JEA Channel Islands manager Ian Taylor said the airline was looking to keep the KLM UK frequency of thrice-daily flights for the summer.
Taylor added JEA was also planning to launch a daily Guernsey-Paris route to make up for KLM UK which is also dropping Guernsey-Amsterdam flights in March. JEA is unable to start flights to Amsterdam as there are no Schiphol slots available.