Easyjet have opened bookings for the period up to 23 June 2019 this morning.
On 27 September they will open bookings for the period 24 June to 1 September 2019.
So it is nearly time to start the flight tables part of the blog for 2019!
Regular readers will remember this feature from previous versions of my blog. This year’s first candidate is Small Planet Germany, which has filed for bankruptcy this week. Now German bankruptcy law allows companies to continue operating under court-approved supervision in these circumstances, so nobody will get stranded.
The Small Planet group is structured with separate companies based in several different countries, and there is no suggestion that any of the other group companies are insolvent.
At the same time there may be an element of inter-group trading (there usually is) which might adversely affect the rest of the group. I would make sure I had airline failure insurance were I to book a ticket with any Small Planet airline, until the dust settles.
Lets hope there are no more airlines on the list this year.
What the travel trade calls the shoulder season is now well under way for Symi, with a mainly older, Northern European, selection of tourists arriving, since all over Europe children are now back at school. Some say that September tourists are trying to avoid the extreme heat of July and August – not much hope this year, the temperature is well in the 30s. Cynics say that they hope to avoid holidaying children and teachers, or benefit from slightly lower airfares.
Apart from this visible change in clientele, things remain much the same. Blue Star Ferries have their autumn timetable in force, this has been known about for many months and there’s no effect on bookings, but the island’s favourite Blue Star Patmos is back from this week onwards on Wednesdays and Fridays, replacing the Nissos Chios.
For the poster who asked about the technical specification of Sebeco, the Greek shipping enthusiast website www.shipfriends.gr has produced this (auto-translated so not perfect):
The Sebeco boat has a total length of 35m and a total width of 7.6m. It has two main Cummins 1350hp propulsion engines each and has Max. Speed 25kn and service speed of 22kn, speeds that were stable and fully loaded. Its total unladen weight is 76t while the laden 109t has a 220-passenger protocol. The boat has two comfortable decks. The interior lounge is divided into the main and the prive and can accommodate 112 people in luxurious coach seats while plastic seats are placed on the outside of the boat and on the sun deck. Sebeco qualifies for short boat (80Nm) as it has 5 crew cabins for 12 people, 1 passenger cabin for 2 persons and 7 WCs with comfortable antechambers. It is equipped with state-of-the-art electronic, electrical and mechanical equipment. Characteristics that highlight it in the largest Greek shipbuilding craft made of GRP.
No doubt it is the light weight enabled by the glass-fibre construction that makes her so bouncy and seasickness is far from unknown. It isn’t unknown either for the open deck seats to be closed off on the evening sailings due to excessive spray coming aboard