Eastern Airways partners with Air France to launch Cardiff – Paris

The third new Paris Orly service to launch in a week commenced between Cardiff International, Wales and Paris-Orly, France as part of the new Eastern Airways and Air France partnership. The daily service adds to the East Midlands and Southampton to Paris Orly services which commenced a week ago.

The new ticketing partnership between UK regional airline Eastern Airways and Air France, the national flag carrier of France and part of the Air France-KLM group, will develop in the coming weeks into a full codeshare agreement. This has also seen Eastern Airways return to East Midlands as a base carrier adding around 25 crew and engineering roles.

The daily services to Paris Orly are operated by Eastern Airways and are bookable now at www.easternairways.com and shortly via Air France www.airfrance.co.uk, including onward connectivity, Air France being part of the Air France-KLM Group.

“We are delighted to have launched Cardiff to Paris adding to the East-Midlands and Southampton services which commenced a week ago in cooperation with Air France given this opens up connectivity to Europe’s second biggest city for both business and leisure travelers and restores direct access year-round to France.” says Roger Hage, commercial director, Eastern Airways.

“The early bookings have been very positive as has all round positive customer and trade feedback, which will evolve further as we establish our new Eastern Airways and Air France cooperation into a codeshare partnership in the coming weeks. Starting these services in a sustainable capacity development whereby not only direct access to Paris is offered, but onward connections to a myriad of destinations allowing business users much improved options but also an exciting and ever popular leisure offer, including Disneyland Paris celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year to add to the Parisian charm the City is famous for”

“We are delighted to welcome the first Air France service, operated by Eastern Airways, from Paris Orly today,” says Cardiff Airport Aviation Development Manager Marc Watkins. “Since we announced the new service a few weeks ago there has been positive engagement from the local catchment, including the business community and travel agents – all of which have been demanding a return for this much needed link to Paris. The arrival of the first flight today is another sign that Cardiff Airport is continuing its recovery towards its former traffic levels.”

Fahmi Mahjoub, General Manager United Kingdom & Ireland, Air France/KLM says “This new cooperation between Air France and Eastern Airways is a very positive move and comes in response to the growing appetite for travel to Paris that we have noticed from all over the United Kingdom. Residents near Cardiff, Southampton and East Midlands, will now be able to fly from their local airport and reach the magnificent capital of France with a direct service, an option that was not available to them before. We look forward to the success of this operation and to enhancing further the cooperation with Eastern Airways in the near future.”

The new Paris Orly service is available with fares from £69.99 each-way including taxes and charges, operating on a low-emission 72-seat ATR aircraft on all three Paris-Orly routes for Eastern Airways. Air France will sell seats via an interline agreement developing into full codeshare with Eastern Airways by the end of the year.

See full schedule, noting all times are local to UK & France: