Brits Say It's Illegal

Low fare service is one thing, but when the airline is operating out of a temporary building without a permit -- well, British authorities say that's just not cricket.

But that's just what German-based TUI's Thomsonfly apparently did, much to the dismay of British zoning officials in Coventry, England. TUI owns both the airline and the airport from which it flies. Even as Thompsonfly's first flights were taking off to Jersey, Malaga, Rome, Valencia and Venice, executives were being served notice that they have to stop using the temporary building as a terminal and that the building itself could soon be razed to the ground.

Apparently, the airline never applied for the proper permits. Very irregular, eh, what?

"The council has been very clear all along," said Richard Brooker, a spokesman for the Warwick District Council. "What it is requiring is for full and proper planning consent to be applied for lawful use of the terminal building, nothing more and nothing less. The planning committee were unanimous in their decision... to go along with enforcement action against the airport because the passenger terminal has been built without planning permission."

So far, the Brooker says the council had received about 2500 complaints from residents about the temporary terminal building.

FMI: www.thomsonfly.com/en/index.html, www.coventryairport.co.uk