Ah, OK .....

EI-REM has had a spot of trouble today in Munster (Hence SEN showing cancelled flights)

Anyone have any further info? Was there an engine fire?

Incident: Stobart AT72 at Muenster on Sep 29th 2014, engine fire indication

Stobart Air growth....
 

So much new routes coming on line in the guise of Aer Lingus Regional and speculating where the gaps/ opportunities that are outstanding Dublin/ UK wise, I'd see them as;

Dublin to;
Liverpool, Luton, Stansted, Newquay and the proposed Carlisle route when that airport comes on stream. All of the above could be EIR except Carlisle, which I'd see as being Flybe territory? The rest of the dots are joined, now that EIR model seems quite happy and able to compete against Ryanair with the support of the transit passengers to the US routes.

Perhaps it is time for Stobart to start thinking about a few Jet types e.g. C Series, to look at opportunities for near european destinations, in support of Aer Lingus, take BRU as an example, won't be much different to MAN and BHX Dublin routes with overload of capacity, A320 may be hard to fill off peak. A jet type may offer opportunities on other routes not served by Aer Lingus.

On a separate note, Loganair as a franchise operator seem to be getting some opportunities on Flybe routes, e.g. GLA MAN. Does anybody foresee that Stobart may get opportunities for BE routes that are under performing outside of say SEN, in the regions? We may see future direction including expansion of the Flybe franchise to include additional bases in the UK?

When they were still Aer Arran, Stobart Air wrote to Carlisle Council saying that they plan to operate an Atr-42 twice daily to SEN and DUB daily - whether that will be as part of the EIR deal, flyBE or in their own right (or any combination?) isn't clear...

With regards to LOG, they operate smaller a/c than BE, where as BE and Stobart fleets are more comparable

After completing an order for some new ATR's, why would they move to jets? Doesnt make any sense whatsoever.

I think there is a gap for a small jet to fill the hole between an A319/320 and the ATR for EI. Whether they would be operated by Stobart or Lingus is another question.

As for the next EIR routes, its a difficult one. There isn't that many more they can go to. Liverpool, Luton, Stansted, Newquay is about it!

I would like them to try MME and DSA again. Used to fly these routes regularly and I will say that they weren't given a proper chance. Whether that is EI or Peels fault I don't know. There was little to no advertisement of the routes.

At the time RE were having a nightmare. The start of the EIR franchise was rocky. I used to be on the MME flight on a weekly basis - initially the loads were fairly good for a new route 45-60ish. Then the rest is down to RE. The schedules were terrible. It felt like each week they changed the operating days and the departure times to suit their network expansion and lack of aircraft. They tried to progress to quickly. By mid summer when they had opened other routes and stretched the fleet too much. Cancellations after delays after delays. I'm not surprised that people left it and towards the end there was usually only 20 on board. Similar story at DSA.

I still think that these airports could support a good, daily 42 service at least to start with. Stobart have sorted the old issues out. Infact, I've gone nearly 200 sectors without a cancellation (other than horrendous weather!). Even delays are pretty infrequent - I would say 3 times out of that 200.

During the MME days I may have flown 60 sectors, there was on at least 4 occasions I recall being cancelled and driving like hell to NCL to catch the FR. Delays were also much more common - quite regularly an hour or so late.

I would love to see them give Humberside a try. Ryanair had a go back in the mid-00's, and were attracting circa 100-150 pax, but this was obviously not enough for a B738. A daily Dublin service, with the right size aircraft, and connections onto the US would no doubt be very welcome and popular.

bigjim99,

It's not just that the size being between the airbus and the ATR, it was more about range I was referring to!

In terms of the times being awful on some of the routes that were axed e.g. DSA, I expect this is true but the challenge there is that the fleet cannot support peak flying times due to the commitment of these to the peak routes, MAN BHX etc currently help fill the off peaks, and others like JER etc.

I'd be very interested to see if they venture to BHD in the EIR guise, though I have no doubt that EI and BE will encounter a conflict of interest, that will make for an interesting outcome.

EI-BUD, indeed I understood that! ;)

Its not that the times were off peak - people can make provisions for that. Its more the regularity. At MME, on Monday the flight would leave one week at 14:40, next week at 16:20, third week there would be no flight. How can you build your regular travellers with that?

sorry I didn't realise the services were so ad hoc and changeable like that.

It is great to see them on such a good trajectory in recent times. However, FR activity e.g. SNN MAN is resulting in the axing of the EIR route. Hopefully FR do not embark on a plan to launch service on too many of the Cork and Shannon EIR routes.

Moreover, I have no doubt FR will look a alternative ways to penalise them for infringing on their existing routes ex DUB.

If anything I would say EIR need some smaller a/c for some of the thinner, riskier routes mentioned and things like ORK-DUB. Also I'm sure they have yet to exhaust all the possibilities from ORK. EMA being one.

I think Jets are a bit of a double edged sword. The extra range would be useful, the issue with Large regional jets are the seat costs. The props offer lower seat costs and lower capacity than the A320/737s on the shirt UK hops. RJs just offer less capacity, but at a higher seat cost. As flyBe found, operating large RJs in a price sensitive market is very difficult.
The question is do EI have a large enough volume of routes with time sensitive, high yielding traffic which are byond the range of an ATR, but don't have the passenger volume to operate an A319 profitably.

Speculation in the Irish Independent concerning a potential merger with Flybe:

Flybe CEO won't rule out future link with Stobart - Independent.ie

This could work well.

I read that article, it said a lot about nothing. Beside Flybe should get their own house in order before they start talking about taking over anyone else.

It would appear that Stobart are now operating BE's IOM services to LPL and BHX? Not heard any formal announcements of this?

I wonder when we will see the new orders ATR orders being placed? Yet again OY-RUG on lease......at least the flying skip LY-MCA has disappeared!

where did you see they are operating the IOM routes for Flybe?

Look at flightradar24- EI-REI doing a number of rotations to the IOM from BHX and LPL.

As it's a short term wet lease one would not expect anything by way of an announcement

Any idea when the Stobart air schedules for Summer 2015 will be released for the aircraft operating under Flybe and EIR? (only a partial DUB one has been released) Cheers

For anyone wondering where EI-EHH has gone, it is at SEN (to the best of my knowledge) wearing a new coat of white paint.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/458986...-poYyQt-pw16Qz

Will it also get an small internal overhaul?

Is stobart closing its Shannon operations in a few weeks its very bad form on the airports part letting Ryanair on Manchester thus ruining their operations if it turns out to be true