Flying London to Saint-Tropez (via Toulon)? Forget Ryanair. It's over

I hate to break hearts on the eve of St Valentine's Day.

The good news is that not too many hearts will be broken.

The bad news affects only those belonging to people who have come to value the Ryanair service between London Stansted and Toulon, handy for Saint-Tropez. It usually flies from about March until October or November and is, on my experience as a regular user, well used.

But warning signs lit up when the Ryanair website offered no dates for forthcoming flights. A call to the airline produced only evasive replies.

So I approached the press office, which seemed fair enough since I am a journalist and travel is among the subjects I cover.

Here is the resulting exchange:

Q: Can you enlighten me on whether Ryanair is resuming its Toulon service from Ldn Stansted this year, if so when and with what frequency and if not, what prompted the decision (eg purely commercial or a dispute with the Chamber of Commerce which, I believe, runs the French airport). I'd be surprised as a fairly frequent user if any decision to withdraw the flights was based on commercial grounds as I cannot recall being on one that wasn't quite full.

A: Our London Stansted-Toulon service will not operate this summer, due to a lack of aircraft capacity. However, our aircraft capacity will increase over the next four years as we continue to take delivery of our 180 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft order. We have launched new routes from Stansted to Deauville (from April) and Clermont (from July), both operating twice weekly - Robin Kiely, Ryanair head of communications

Q: Many thanks. You did not specifically say there was no dispute with the airport operators - or reason to doubt the airport's continued existence - but your reason for not operating the flight suggests there was none. Can you confirm that is the case? I have no knowledge of such dispute or concern but am reluctant to make assumptions. And were passenger figures poorer than i imagined from personal experience, in other words influencing decisions on which services would fall victim to the lack of capacity?

A: No, it came down to aircraft capacity unfortunately.

* Only a few readers will be affected by this news. And I believe a limited service to Toulon is or will be available with Flybe from Bournemouth.