It is wrong to blame Eastern for the demise of Air Southwest, it was a Dodo before Eastern stepped in to save Sutton Harbour Holdings face and allow them to get shot of the liability without passengers losing bookings.
Commercially an excellent move for Eastern, gave them the opportunity to pick up the decent bits and shut down the rest.
Economic circumstance killed Air Southwest not Eastern.
Eastern have retained 3 x of the Air Southwest Dash 8's, G-WOWA, B & E. Also they have kept the 2x Bristol-Leeds-Aberdeen service which is going to be improved from next month with a 3rd daily rotation been added.
GLA-SVG has been operating foraround 2 weeks, at present the highest passenger figure has been around 10, the aircraft has 50 seats!. Not seen it advertised anywhere either.
I dont think eastern have the aircraft, crew or interest in operating anything out of IOM again, let alone to somewhere operationally awkward like LCY.
Reading an article which mentioned Eastern run 2 Embraer 135's and 1 Embraer 145?? Any truth in this and what routes do they run on. How many Jetstreams are they still operating and how are they holding up in today's market.
Reading an article which mentioned Eastern run 2 Embraer 135's and 1 Embraer 145?? Any truth in this and what routes do they run on. How many Jetstreams are they still operating and how are they holding up in today's market.
Well they are certinly doing well in the charter sector as they have won best charter airline at the Baltic Air Charter Association (BACA) Excellence Awards.
I dint know how important or influential this award is.
I am flight crew with EA and will exempt myself from the following statement.
Statement: The only way EA have won this award is SOLELY down to the exceptional performance of the flight crew. They sort out every problem and do a dynamic job.
Without these crews, we'd never get airborne.
Again, I distance myself personally from the above statement. But as a flight crew member I can say; generally brilliant FO's and cabin crew.
If only HUY would know, understand and accept the above, they may not have so many people looking for other work.
I feel a second wave of resignations are on the way.
I have to say that as a regular passenger with EA I cannot fault the service. The planes are always clean and comfortable, the general levels of professionalism of the crews, both up front and down the back, cannot be faulted - the ability to treat all their customers as valued clients not just an inconvenience is a big plus when travelling anywhere. Just as importantly, prices compare very favourably with the much longer, much more expensive and less efficient first class (sometimes ordinary class) rail fares. Its extremely rare that any disruption of services is as a direct fault of EA and if it is they've always been the first to sort it out face to face, not duck and weave behind smokescreens. I'm also closely aquainted with a number of their charter clients who wouldn't return time after time to EA if the service wasn't first class and very competitive.
I've been in aviation long enough to be well aqualinted with the first EA and it's directors as well as this lot (except RL), and as far as I know EA have always tried to be a fair employer but they have to live with the economic times just as any anyone does and they've done very well to survive and grow this far. It's ineviatble that pilots and cabin crew will want to move on to improve their lot, but as soon as they do they can be instantly replaced and the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Something to think about perhaps.
JamesT - the assumption that most flightdeck at Eastern make, is that Richard Lake doesn't want them to leave. This may not be the case. I suspect that he wants the more experienced (top of the increments) people to disappear, so that they can be replaced by cheaper people (bottom of the rung, no increments for a couple of years, second officers and newly-promoted captains) - who have just paid him for a type-rating, or have been bonded for command.
He will hang onto the older captains with plenty of hours, simply due to their inability to move on, and these captains will bolster the command hours profile of the company. This will keep the CAA/insurance company from getting too anxious or nosey.
Remember - every £50 saved by RL is another minute of Spitfire rental.... ;o)
