Originally Posted by
The Nutts Mutts
Totally agree with this. Of all the airlines that have replaced Flybe on routes from SOU, Eastern are probably the least well known and recognisable. Apart from their twitter account I haven't seen much if any marketing for their new routes.
Although you could argue that the Flybe flights had good loads before Covid and many of the business travellers and people feeding onto long haul ex MAN aren't travelling right now.
Agree with all of this. Even at the end Flybe were flying SOU-MAN ~6x daily on weekdays! I wonder is Eastern will struggle on the route once Blue Islands start it at the end of October as I feel that they may be a better known name around Southampton, not to mention to partnership with Loganair allow for domestic connections (something Flybe had a fair amount of through MAN). Hopefully Eastern can establish themselves a little more before they gain competition on the route.
It is good to see that BHD is doing well for them though, hopefully this will continue. I wonder if NCL is paying it's way being on a J41 once a day where Loganair have now grown to 2x daily ER3/4 on weekdays?
Finally, I expect the Irish border restrictions and quarantine is the reason for DUB being pushed back to October. That is another route they'll be competing with Blue Islands on, although if there is demand for it Eastern's current planned 12 weekly morning and evening schedule is a lot more attractive than the 4 weekly lunchtime flights from the competition.