Passengers travelling from Southampton with Blue Islands can now book journeys on the airline's independent booking facility.

Blue Islands has restored its website allowing customers to make bookings for all Blue Islands flights on all of its routes at www.blueislands.com, following the collapse of its former franchise partner Flybe.

As a temporary measure each route will have its own flat fare and include 23kg hold baggage while the airline makes further system implementations and introduces dynamic pricing and fare options.

While payments systems are implemented, customers will be able to hold seats using the website and its new call centre partner, Flight Directors, will contact customers to take payment, which will confirm the booking. Customers making bookings will be contacted from 08.00 tomorrow (07 March).

Rob Veron, CEO Blue Islands said 'We would like to thank our customers for their patience while we reinstated our bookings systems at www.blueislands.com. Customers can now book all flights on our website for flights until 24 October 2020 and we have added the resource of a new call centre ready to serve our customers too. We are working to restore website functionality, including online payment early next week. We will continue to provide updates to our passengers as they become available.'

Passengers with bookings on Blue Islands operated services, travelling this weekend (07 & 08 March 2020) and on Monday 09 March can go to the airport with their booking confirmation and check-in as normal. Blue Islands will honour these flights without further payment. Any customers without a booking, wishing to travel this weekend or on Monday are able to book and pay for tickets at the airport of departure.

Mr Veron added 'Our schedule continues to operate as normal and our dedicated team looks forward to welcoming our customers on board.'

Currently, funds from all future bookings for Blue Islands operated services made via Flybe are held by Flybe's merchant card acquirers. These controls were put in place to safeguard consumer funds in the event of Flybe's collapse. This means that the original booking for a Blue Islands operated service made via Flybe is no longer valid and requires rebooking with Blue Islands.

As a result, passengers who had made a booking through Flybe for a Blue Islands operated service for travel from the 10 March onwards will be required to make a new booking with Blue Islands prior to travel, or at the airport before departure.

Customers should refer to the Civil Aviation Authority website for information on refunds, or contact the credit card company that was used for payment.

(C) 2020 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire