Stobart Air were granted funding for Belfast, Dublin and Southend flights back in 2016 as part of the governments new Regional Air Connectivity Fund. I'm not sure if this is still in place after the delays and change of operators however.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/n...-uk-and-europe
I was lucky enough to be on the first flight out of Carlisle on Thursday, so here's a few observations from the day:
- Free bacon rolls and bucks fizz in the airport in the morning. No cake - they saved that for later on (apparently it was in the shape of a plane)
- Security took an age. Probably around 20 minutes to process all passengers
- You wait in the cafe until the flight is called, proceed straight through security and on to the plane.
- There were around 3 empty seats on the first flight, so about 33 passengers. At least 2 of those were media, possibly 4. 3 aviation enthusiasts just wanting to be on the first flight
- No windows in rows 2. Row 6 is the emergency exit (Nyxair aircraft is a different config to the loganair saabs)
- Cabin crew are Loganair - Newcastle based. 1 Crew member will operate all 3 flights for the day. I assume the pilots are Nyxair. Crew seem happy to be operating the flights
- Free gift bag containing a mini bottle of whisky and a loganair shot glass for all passengers on our flight.
- Flight arrives into T1 at Dublin. There was no queue at all for immigration when we arrived so straight through. (you can use a driving licence for immigration). United flights depart from T2, so not an ideal connection.
I spent the night in Dublin, then came back the following morning. Some more observations:
- Only 10 passengers on the return flight. 2 of those were media.
- Immigration in to carlisle took an age. Border force dont seem to have passport scanners, but instead manually type passport details into laptops to process them
- Apparently on the first day they were giving out 70 numbered leather passport covers to incoming passengers. None of these were being given out on day 2, so either they used them all and inbound loads were decent, or they just didnt bother.
Flight times both ways were around 55 minutes. All in all though, its a great service, and long may it continue. I'm off to Chicago at the end of the month, and considering going Via Dublin rather than driving up to EDI, but we'll see. It's a 2 hour connection in Dublin, involving a terminal change, so not ideal. Southend in August to visit friends in London, then might as well to Belfast in September so I've done all 3 destinations :-)