The AMS service was operated by FlyBe, the STN service by Loganair aircraft and crew. The aircraft were painted in FlyBe colours.
While Loganair were happy to fly visual approaches to the non instrument runway 27, FlyBe were hampered by their ops manual which stated that they must use an instrument runway for initial approach. This meant they were spending up to 20 minutes flying round in busy class G airspace when the wind favoured RWY 27.