Highland Airways
 

I see from their website that Highland Airways is getting a Beech 1900. Are they moving away from the Jetstreams or is this for longer routes (quicker than J31?).

The Be1900 could be for the Cardiff - Valley route with the Jetstream moving back upto Inverness

WNC

It is an ACMI lease to evaluate the aircraft. It's exact disposition is yet to be determined, but it will be put to good use.
The Jetstreams are still going 'strong' (!) and recruitment onto type is still happening so unlikely to be binned just yet...

Is there a crew base at Cardiff or do Highland just rotate the crews between Cardiff and Inverness?

No there is a crew base at CWL.

with a crew and aircraft based at Cardiff, i'm very supprised that they haven't opened up another route for 2 sectors which they could do as Eastern Airways did with the BRU and the NCL.

I wonder if Highland would stick around once the 3 year funding has gone

Has Hiway got its Islander for the Hebridean services yet? I see they aren't advertising for an Islander pilot any more.
NS

An aircraft has been located and is being surveyed. A pilot has been recruited for the role, subject to a probationary period.

Highland route to Angelsey from CWL is doing very well - higher than ever anticipated. Average load of 12 passengers per flight with majority operating to capacity.

A larger aircraft would benefit this route such as a J41.........this will then give the range for additional services ex CWL. You would have though they would have looked at CWL-GCI or CWL-IOM especially on the weekends as these two destinations are not served direct from CWL.

Lets hope they spot this market for the Summer 2008 season !!!

The Cardiff-Valley service originated from a political imperative from the Welsh Assembly that there should be better transport links connecting North and South Wales, backed by a hefty subsidy from the UK taxpayer, not from any commercial considerations by Hiway, and their commitment to the publicly-funded Valley service will always take precedence over any other use of the aircraft.
NS

Is Angelsey - Cardiff purely an outbound market or is there reasonable traffic at the CWL end as well?

Loads are good on both sector - average 130 passengers per Mon-Fri on outbound sectors ex CWL - this is what I have been told by someone in the know !!!

Nice. That's a 72% load factor.

Highland Airways
 

Hi Guys,
Can anyone update me on the fleet information for Highland, are they still using all the Jetstream 31's?
They have received 2 Jetstream 41's with 2 more to come, anyone know what for?
Also, what routes do they operate apart from the scheduled ones? (i.e flights for BAE Systems etc) I've found the Warton - Filton...are there any more?

Cheers,
Sam

highland wales
 

they also fly cardiff to angelsey twice daily m-f with jetstream

Hello,

From what I can gather from G-INFO and various other places they have:
6x J31s (G-BTXG, G-CCPW, G-EIGG, G-JURA, G-LOVB, G-UIST)
1x F406s (G-LEAF and they also operate the 2x on behalf of the SFPA (G-SFPA and G-SFPB)
1x BN2 (G-SEIL)
1x J41 (G-TEXA with another arriving in the near future)

As far as routes go:
They do the newspaper runs for the Northern and Western Isles flying to Stornoway, Kirkwall and Sumburgh.
They have a PSO contract flight running between Inverness, Stornoway and Benbecula
They have another PSO contract flying between Anglesey (Mona) and Cardiff using a J31
The Islander will (eventually!) be used for flights between Oban, Coll, Colonsay and Tiree.
I think they also have 2x J31s flying for BAe beteen Warton and Cambridge and also do Oil exploration flights to Ireland (Cork, Shannon, Waterford) as well as to Norway (Bergen, Stavanger) and the Faroes (Vagar).
The J41 as far as I know will be used for BAe on the same flights as the 2x J31s (more pax!)

according to latest EBAN they have two J41s on order. Basil quoted as saying "a 12 month contract is lined up to provide a corporate shuttle from Scotland to the South west". Starting early summer. Eastern are bringing on more SAABs to replace the 41s:ok:

Jetstreamtechrecords

I believe that Eastern would like to get more Saab 2000's but there are none available, there was only ever 54 built and 1 of them was written off. I do believe however that the INV-AMS codeshare is now back on, watch this space

I do believe that G-MAJN is at this minute been checked out by Highland at Eastern, this aircraft was operating in Norway and was due to be sold to the Norwegians but the route on which it was operating for some company has decided to close it, and therefore a/c not now needed.

Just for the record, 63 Saab 200s were built. 2 have been written off.

Indeed there is almost zero availability. The last examples that came on the market were the ex Régional aircraft and they were quickly snapped up.

Cheers guys, I knew about the scheduled flights (eg what's on the website) BAe flights are hard to find information about. Can anyone tell me what sort of frequency/times the BAe flights are/or the newspaper runs.
So if the J41's will take over on the BAe flights from the J31's where will they put the extra 31's?

Highland were advertising for type rated crews to be based at INV and EDI recently so this may provide a clue as to where the aircraft will be based.

Ex

<quote>according to latest EBAN they have two J41s on order. Basil quoted as saying "a 12 month contract is lined up to provide a corporate shuttle from Scotland to the South west". Starting early summer. Eastern are bringing on more SAABs to replace the 41s<quote>

G-LOVB (and other JS31s) have been flying Glasgow-Filton-Plymouth and back for some months now.........

Are Highland looking at more scheduled routes beyond what they currently do, eg. INVCWL for example (given their interests at both)?

And are they wise to, given the current economic climate? Guess however there is always an opening for someone, somewhere - good on them.

J41
 

J41 destined for GLA-EDI-FZO-PLH

Does anyone think that Highland might operate Newquay - East Midlands?

Would be a perfect operator for the route

If this is the case, probably originate in EDI as crews are based there.

Ex

My Q at #10 not directly linked to this, but rumour that Highland may be looking at the ex-City Star routes, or some of them.

Dunno how substantiated this is, may be a case of "my friend was hearing that his friend's brother's cousin said..." :rolleyes:
:}

Edi-gla-fzo-plh
 

Highland have been operating this route for some time now with a J31 so the J41 would be a capacity increase, not a new route.

I note at Jethros that Highland have acquired three additional Jetstream 31/32s from Norway/Sweden, bringing the fleet to 9 examples. Those plus four Jetstream 41s makes a pretty impressive fleet of 13 Jetstreams. How do they keep them busy - the schedules only require two Jetstreams, and the corporate shuttle another two, if I am not mistaken?

EDIT: As we are just at it - when did they drop the direct INV-BEB flights? I took one of those about two years ago very soon after their inaugural and they seemed to be reasonably patronized back then.

They do a few oil charters, although I've not heard them in Aberdeen of late - they were around earlier in the year. Likes of Stavanger, Bergen, Ireland.

another route
 

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Highlands and Islands | Airline secures Finnish contract

will they get more 31s for this route/ use the ones they have parked up for long periods

there a some very good reasons highland wont setup a lunchtime run out of plymouth using the 41.
first, the crew are on a split due to working a max duty day already, so there is no-one to fly the wee beasty.
second, the charter client have stated that they want the aircraft to be available whenever, and wont be too happy seeing the aircraft disappearing off downroute everyday. this charter is a nice little earner for highland and they don't want to rock the boat after what was a shaky start.
finally, highland don't like to do schedule flying. when they do, it's only PSO routes and there aint many of those out of plymouth.

fraid your stuck with AirSouthwest.


as for the finnish contract, rumour has it that there will be two jetstreams based there to reduce any downtime due to potential tech problems. however, trying to crew this route will stretch an already strained roster. :{

I'm probably one of the few on here who has actually flown into Lappeenranta, near the Finnish border with Russia (even looked at renting a PA28 from the local aero club for a jolly but that's another matter). A few years ago it was on the Golden Air network in Finland, with about 6 SF340s to Helsinki a day, then they gave it up and there was nothing for a while.

Fly Lappeenranta (a sort of local Chamber of Commerce-type initiative) started up and chartered an SF340 themselves for just 4 a day, but don't seem to have had much success, probably because they don't have the interline arrangements with Finnair that Golden Air had. So they are downsizing again, to a Jetstream.

Typical loads a few years ago on the Saabs were about a dozen passengers, in fact never more, and I guess have gone down since, which would fit the Jetstream nicely. Hope the crews manage to enjoy Lappeenranta hotac - have to say it's no Las Vegas !

I believe G-GCPW will be going to Lappenranta. G-FARA has already gone.:ok:

With CCPW and FARA leaving for Finland to fly for Lappenranta, that leaves just 4 Jetstream 31's.

2 based Warton for BAE (EIGG/UIST)
1 ops PSO Cardiff-Valley (BTXG)
1 ops PSO Stornoway-Benbecula (JURA?)

What will then operate the mail contract they have that operates between Kirkwall, Sumburgh and Inverness on a morning? (HWY4A/B/C)
Is G-NOSS ready to be put in to service yet?

Cheers,
Sam

That contract is for newspapers and it was G-PW this morning:ok:

R@B

What will happen when CCPW leaves for Finland? Is it due to go when Highland bring the next in to service (G-NOSS)?
Also, what's to happen to the other Jetstream 41 G-TEXA?

all highland a/c are currently being followed when taxing/taking off and landing at inv by an airport car from the fire section or the ops dept to check for fod after some incedents including tools found on runway and bits of metal falling off

the airport have now stoped following them

Highland Airways
 

I frequently fly with Highland on the Stornoway - Benbecula route and the service is not very good. I have on occasions been sitting around the airport expecting the be called and the staff have the binoculars out looking for the plane that has not even left were it was coming from yet. A simple phone call to a. let the staff know and b. let the pax know would only be common courtesy.

The fares are a joke too. Stornoway - Benbecula £120 economy return (if you are lucky) for being on 15 minutes and they normally have decent loads and that is it with government subsidy apparently. When I fly Benbecula - Inverness I normaly change onto Loganair (Flybe) in Stornoway as its much cheaper and the cabin is clean, tidy, your hand luggage doesn't get confiscated from you!

Also I was on when an elderly woman was travelling for a hospital visit who was unsteady on her feet and they refused to use ambulift, which I believe the lady's doctor requested. The lady fell over the deathtrap of a step and was hurt badly. Not an infrequent occurance from what I hear.

Even without subsidy I think Loganair (Flybe) would make a better go of the route. It would allow interlining services to Inverness and Edinburgh and also be more useful to Barra pax. It would also have cheaper connection to Aberdeen/Sumburgh.