Following the Government’s announcement regarding the first stage of their roadmap and after discussions with schools on both sides of the Solent, Hovertravel is announcing extra dedicated flights to help ferry children back to school.
Julie Horrocks, Head of Ground Operations at Hovertravel, explains: “We are monitoring our passenger demand on a daily basis and as we follow the Government’s roadmap over the next few months, we will adjust our timetable accordingly.
Supporting the priority rightly given to getting children back to school, we are adding extra services in the morning and the afternoon to ensure we have capacity to match this increased demand. These flights will be for school children primarily, with other customers able to board if there is availability. This is a special adjustment to our timetable to specifically assist and support the first step of the Government’s roadmap and we will review the additional flights during the Easter holidays, updating our customers after that time.“
From Monday 8th March until Friday 26th March on weekdays only there will be four additional flights in the morning: from Ryde – 0730 & 0800 and from Southsea 0745 & 0815. There will also be two flights added in the afternoon: from Ryde 1545 & from Southsea 1600.
The two flights departing from Ryde in the morning and the one departing from Southsea in the afternoon have been introduced for children going to and returning from school, and pupils will be given priority. If there is any surplus space available after the five minutes before departure deadline has passed, Hovertravel staff will load other customers.
These new flights are in place until the start of the Easter holidays, so will not run after Friday 26th March and all customers are reminded that they should be at the terminal and have scanned their ticket at least five minutes before their chosen departure time.
Julie continues: “By providing dedicated school flights we can give confidence to children, parents and schools that we are doing all we can to make returning to school by Hovertravel as easy as possible.”
