From Delays to Direct: How FlyDirect Is Transforming Island Travel

There are many difficulties that come with living on an island.

• Struggling to date outside your family. 
• Not being able to nip to the shop without bumping into Gerard who loves holding people in conversation hostage about his Sellotape collection. 
• The permanent threat of decapitation by a seagull. 

But arguably the most difficult of all is simply getting on and off.  

It must be a minuscule portion of the population that hasn’t had to, at least once, sit for hours in Ronaldsway departure lounge tanked up on too much Costa coffee, trying to maintain their sanity while that psychotically chirpy song from the kid’s plastic plane ride echoes around the room on a loop.  

I’ve been on more delayed flights than flights that went on time. And if the UK is your stopgap, those delays naturally have a domino effect on the remainder of your travels. Anticipating this, those who can afford it often choose to spend a night in the UK before flying onto their final destination. It lowers the risk of missing that second flight due to delays to the first, but can easily add hundreds of pounds to your trip. Well, one company is taking strides to help you keep some money in your pocket and get you from A to B more efficiently without having a mental breakdown in the process.  

‘We hope that we can provide people with a very stress-free, easy journey, and since we introduced direct flights from the Isle of Man, we’ve seen demand grow significantly.’ 

That’s Robert Mackenzie, he’s the Managing Director of C.I. Travel Group – brand name FlyDirect – a Jersey-based tour operator, which, over the last five years has introduced island residents to the wonderful sensation of being able to fly directly to certain destinations, rather than having to stop somewhere on the way.  

‘We started just with Palma,’ Robert tells me enthusiastically, ‘but, as of this year, we’ve got a total of 6 routes from the Isle of Man. Four in the summer, and two in the winter.’  

‘WHERE TO?!’ I hear you vitamin D deprived, sallow-skinned souls demand. Well, dust off that thick layer of dust from your Manx sunglasses, you’ll need them for one of these: 

• Faro, Algarve 
• Ibiza 
• Malaga, Costa del Sol 
• Palma, Majorca 
• Tenerife South  
• Lanzarote  

‘We picked the destinations based on the highest number of people wanting to go. So, Majorca was recorded as being the most popular UK holiday destination in summer and in winter it’s Tenerife’ says Robert. ‘We do hope to expand and introduce new destinations but that depends on aircraft availability. We can only do so much when there’s a finite number of residents in the Isle of Man.’   

The inclusion of the Isle of Man into the FlyDirect programme was created during the Covid years. People were apprehensive of flying through the UK, with the countless coronavirus procedures. It was something the attentive folks at C.I. Travel noticed. They listened to the desires of the public and then acted and have been flying high ever since. (I won’t apologise for the pun). 

‘It’s been fantastic watching the growth and development of the FlyDirect programmes in such a short period of time. We’ve only been operating from the Isle of Man for a few years and this summer we’ll carry something within the region of 6,000 residents from the island straight to various destinations. That just shows there’s significant buy in from locals to the idea of flying direct.’ 

Reputation is a big focus point for Robert, understandably. A reputation can make or break a company, and it’s something he wants to continue prioritising when I asked him what his aspirations are for the company. 

‘We live or die by our reputation’ Robert tells me. ‘So, obviously we focus on travel and trying to continue providing more destinations for people to fly directly to. But we also focus on ensuring we provide good customer service. We’ve had great success since introducing the Isle of Man into FlyDirect and we don’t want to take that for granted, we want to build on it and make sure we deliver a service we can be proud of and keep standards as high as we can.’ 

Direct flights aren’t the only things on offer to make your travels easier, FlyDirect also offers package holidays. All you have to do is book then turn up at Ronaldsway and pray Manannan keeps his cloak locked up in the back of his wardrobe. 

‘So, you’re saying, I can save time and money by being able to fly directly to my holiday destination?? This sounds FANTASTIC!’ I hear you exclaim with the enthusiasm of Frank Sinatra after hearing someone say, ‘Come fly with me’.  

That is indeed what I’m saying. Well, what the accommodating folks at C.I. Travel are saying. So, if you can’t hack the idea of another Manx summer or Manx winter – it’s difficult to differentiate between the two when both equate to standing under a permanently dripping tap – then head on over to Flydirect.co.uk to see all the routes from the Isle of Man.  

They might not be able to stop flights being delayed, but they can help get rid of the stop point in between destinations. Which in turn cuts down time, prices, and helps lower exceptionally high stress-related blood pressure that comes from trying to salvage a disrupted trip, while listening to that psychotically chirpy song from the kid’s plastic plane in Ronaldsway departures.