Barking mad. It now appears as though Eastern have 12 bases for the operation of 24 aircraft. They are long over-due for a radical rationalisation of bases to cut crew and engineering costs, but they seem to keep on adding bases instead of working out how to operate the same routes from a reduced number of bases. Quite mad.
It leaves them 100% exposed to any competitor entering a route (not necessarily SOU-BRU) and until they focus on five or six bases instead of 12, they will never start to see any reduction in seat/mile costs. For as long as this is the case, the Flybe Q400s can continue to cause major damage on Eastern's key routes like NCL-SOU, NWI-ABZ, LBA-SOU etc. If they cut their costs, they could start to either a) make big profits to withstand competition or b) lower fares to grow markets to avoid someone else doing it for them.
T3 bases : Aberdeen, Southampton, Leeds Bradford, Newcastle, Manchester, Inverness, Wick, Nottingham EMA, TeesSide, Norwich, Humberside, Isle of Man