Ryanair to announce Poland routes

[egnxema]

More to the point - how on earth will any of the ground crew making gate announcements at STN be able to pronounce those cities?

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

Easy they will just call them all Warsaw

G-I-B

[pee]

how on earth will any of the ground crew making gate announcements at STN be able to pronounce those cities?

Oh, it's easy (well, I do happen to speak Polish ).
Just give them those names written the way they should be pronounced
e.g. Bydgoszcz = Bidgoshtsh
Szczecin = Shtshetsin, an so on.
Isn't it simple?

[Runway 31]

Thats easy for you to say, write, er whatever.

[Tranceaddict]

At STN, before the demise of Air Polonia, we use to get a Polish passenger to do the announcment for us, certainly easier than trying to pronnounce it yourself :-)

[egnxema]

pee

he he - even when you write it out how it should be said - there are not enough vowels in there for me to get me tongue round it.



Maybe we could make up some english language friendly alternatives, kinda like the spanish friendly "Londres" and french friendly "Douvres" - (is London and Dover really that hard to say in Spanish or French?)

I must admit - at TFS, last time I was there, I did feel for the spanish guy that was trying to get his mouth round "Birmingham". (Not literally of course)

In the huge "rename, throw mud, scream if you don't win, battle" that the new name for EMA resulted it, let's just be thankful they didn't call it Loughborough - I can hear the announcements at Rome Ciampino in my mind now!!

[pee]

there are not enough vowels in there for me to get me tongue round it

Not enough vovels, huh? Well, I speak several difficult languages. Like Finnish. How do you ask for the unleaded petrol in Finland?
"Lyijytöntä, olkaa hyvä". Much more vowels, how do you like it?

[Copenhagen]

How about French Polynesia - Name of Papeete's airport is FAAA. (and no - that isnt a four letter ICAO code). Easy to pronounce though!

[pee]

New PL destinations

So, we have 2 new destinations in Poland to be served by FR. Gdansk (yes, the same previously "unattractive" Gdansk) and Rzeszów, both from HHN.
Keeping in mind the language difficulties I will add here the pronunciation rules for Rzeszów. It's Zheshove. Say Zhe and then say 'move' replacing 'm' with 'sh'. Zhe(h)-shove. That's it!

[pee]

Actually, it's pretty funny to reintroduce this thread roughly one year after it has been created. Only some months earlier MOL had been pretty reluctant even to speak of any CE-European plans. But everything just happened, and now...

Ryanair, an Irish budget airline, projects that it will carry at least 1.4 million new passengers to and from Poland in the new financial year starting in April 2006.
Since it started operating in this country in March 2005, the airline has carried 260,000 passengers. Currently, the carrier offers four destinations: the UK, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. "Our brand has become recognizable among Poles and we plan to also offer flights to Rome, Milan or Piza. We are also considering Spain, France, Norway and Finland," said Michael Cawley, Ryanair deputy president. Ryanair is currently present at eight Polish airports. "Our plan is to serve 10-11 airports," said Cawley. The carrier is currently in the process of expanding its airbase network, it wants to set up three or four new ones and one of them is to be built in this country. "We have visited Gdansk, Kraków, Wroclaw, Poznan and Lódz," said Cawley, aading that, "Sooner or later we would have to build an airbase in Poland."

Other sources suggest Wroclaw as the most likely location for a new base:

Ryanair perceives Poland as the most promising market in Europe. Now, the carrier is looking for the best location for its Eastern European base, and Wrocław seems to be top of its list. Last week, Bernard Berger, Ryanair's business development director, and Michael Cawley, the company's chief operating officer, visited various airports throughout Poland, and seemed to be leaning towards locating the base at Wrocław's Copernicus airport in Lower Silesia. Though the final decision will not be made until early spring, the airport's vice-president of the board, Leszek Karwowski, is sounding confident: "I estimate the chances of Wrocław [receiving the Eastern European base] at 80-90 percent." Although last year's negotiations limited the number of potential candidates to three cities - Wrocław, Łódz and Poznań - the officials' appearance in Kraków last week threw Kraków's Balice airport into the running. Kraków already acts as a Polish base for Sky Europe, which intends to expand its destinations from Kraków to eight by the end of this year. However, there are still several obstacles. "With the existing infrastructure facilities, Kraków airport is too small to establish a Ryanair base. The same situation is in all other regional airports in Poland," says Tomasz Kułakowski, the carrier's sales and marketing executive for Central Europe, adding that the Wrocław airport seems to have the best chance at overcoming those obstacles. "We notice that the area of Wrocław has huge potential and the number of passengers flying from Strachowice is increasing rapidly. This might influence our final decision," Kułakowski says. Ryanair's first flights to London from Poland took off from the Wrocław airport in March last year. Currently, Ryanair flies from Wrocław to four destinations: London Stansted, Nottingham East Midlands in England, and Dublin and Shannon airports in Ireland. This gives Wrocław the highest number of Ryanair flights from Poland. That position, however, is not enough to seal the deal. "First we have to reach a low-cost agreement that would make a long-term partnership and cooperation extremely valuable for both parties," says Kułakowski.