Porto – for #winelovers' seminar and Port immersion event

 São Bento Station and beyond late afternoon

 Pleasant Ryanair flight!

We flew from Tours to Porto this morning on Ryanair. We haven't travelled on Ryanair for a while and I was amazed as the staff were very welcoming, friendly and helpful. I kept thinking I must have got on the wrong plane or was flying with another company......  

Here for a #winelovers event #IWS2016 – posts to follow.   

 Around São Bento

 (above and below)

 Porto in a Bottle 

small, friendly wine shop in Rua das Flores

Smoking a pipe
 while holding up the ceiling of the Tropical Café

Ryanair now accepting bookings to Tours

Ryanair is now accepting bookings to and from Tours Airport, so presumably the Conseil Générale had now paid the outstanding marketing fees. Apparently Ryanair directly employs 60 people in Tours with 300 employed indirectly.  

See news story in La Nouvelle Républlique. 

Ryanair suspends all flights from Tours Airport from 1st September

Control tower@Tours Airport

Ryanair is in dispute with the local Chamber of Commerce and the Communauté d'Agglomération of Tours over subventions – unpaid marketing fees (438,570€) Apparently they may be paid on Monday 16th August by the Conseil Général. On 9th August Ryanair decided to freeze reservations on flights from and to Tours from 1st September. Ryanair flies from Tours to London Stansted, Dublin, Marseilles and Porto with a weekly summer flight to Figari (Corsica).

As far as I know Ryanair is the only airline to use Tours regularly. Ryanair will continue to fly to Poitiers, the closest commercial airport to Tours, from London Stansted.

Looks like a trial of strength – who will blink first. Will the authorities pay up? Might another lost cost carrier replace Ryanair?

See details from report in La Nouvelle République here and here.

17th August: Update – bookings now being accepted after 1st September. See here.