Originally Posted by
Expressflight
Last year a total of 19,940 pax flew the NWI-MAN route, while in 2017 it was 26,209. Going back to 2008 that figure was 42,846 so there has been a huge drop off in traffic on the route. Who has operated NWI-MAN over the years? I can recall it being a Flybe route (I think) that was then franchised to Loganair and latterly operated by them in their own right. I wonder how the fares have changed over the years because they seem quite high these days and I wonder if, perhaps in the Flybe days, fares were lower in real terms. Otherwise it's hard to see why the pax numbers fell off so dramatically as the train journey still takes nearly 5 hours and by road it takes about the same amount of time.
First NWI-MAN schedule was flown by Air Anglia, for about a year during 1971-72. Twice weekly by Islander, which then also went on to LPL. Single fare was initially £11...
Route then relaunched twice-daily (Mo to Fr) in early 1994 by Interline, who used J31, later Short 330. After their demise in spring 1996, Suckling came onto the route with Do228, but gave up the route soon after becoming Scot Airways in late 1999. Eastern replaced them from Feb 2000, with J31, until May 2006, and bmi regional also flew the route briefly for a couple of months in early 2004 (ERJ).
Flybe started service with larger Dash 8 in May 2006, and flew the route until March 2012, when Loganair took over responsibility using the Do328 (initially flown for them by Suckling, prior to integration). Loganair of course operated under the Flybe franchise until Sep 2017, and the ERJ then replaced the Dornier in March 2019. Peak annual passenger numbers were about 47k in 2007, the first full year of Flybe service.