Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Corder.

It's Friday the 24th of October, which means that we're a day or two away from winter,

at least in airline world, because Sunday the 26th is when the winter schedules begin in the Northern Hemisphere, at least.

That normally signals quite a contraction in the

number of flights and routes because the airlines simply don't make so much money in the winter,

but this year there seems to be an awful lot more going on. You'll recall I spoke very recently

to Sean Moulton, the aviation and List, who does an

awful lot to keep us informed about what's happening with new routes, and it seemed very

appropriate to speak to him again about what he foresees for the coming winter. Here we are. It's

the start of the winter season. What are you looking forward to

particularly? I think the reconnectivity of long-call destinations is something we rarely see in the winter,

but tomorrow there'll be Pia back in the UK for the first time in five years.

At Pakistan International. Flying from Manchester to his lab about twice a week.

And then from Sunday, basically for the first time since the pandemic,

Heathrow will get three new airlines coming in in a form of Airpiece, Indigo and Reader.

And it's something we very rarely see at Heathrow as any new carriers.

So it's very exciting.

And those airlines, of course, from Nigeria, in the case of Airpiece, India for Indigo, and

Riyadh, the new start-up from Saudi Arabia.

But that was a little bit odd in that you and I can't buy a ticket for it.

No, it very much appears like they've got their remedy slots at Heathrow.

And I'm just going to stop you there because remedy slots are what airlines who are merging with each other have to give up.

...