And something like 6 circuits and bumps in the aircraft, sometimes the simulator though, that passengers cannot be carried in.

Then, dependant upon operator ops manual, for the first few line training sectors a third (safety) pilot may be required.

True I was thinking of my last conversion, which was a zero flight time rating.

Although with the ATR it wouldn't surprise me if the Sim cost plus hotac etc plus payment for the TRE in Sim plus TRE line training Captain for the first 4 sectors wouldn't be the same as doing 4 circuits in the aircraft anyway.

Anyway your looking at about 40K per pilot converting onto type and it taking at least 3 months to get them released to line. And even then it will take 100 hours of flying after that to be become completely de-restricted for low vis stuff and flying with other inexperienced crew possibly also they will have lower xwind limits as well depending on what the SOP say.

Thanks for the info about type ratings, that probably explains why the ATR flew to Scatsa and looks like it did the touch and go's there.

Scatsa there could be a few reasons why they did that.

There is a thing called area and aerodrome competency for Captains.

Scatsa at 1360meters is pretty short and it only has offset none precision approaches. So they may have a requirement to tick a box for the aerodrome competency to allow the captain to operate in there.

It might be something like self brief and 200 hours on type or 2 touch n goes with a TRE to get an immediate sign off. As they will want everyone to be able to operate into there quickly they go for touch and goes.

I really don't know, as that sort of stuff will be subject to the flight ops inspectors requirements.

Per say I don't think any TRE is going to go and do circuits at Scatsa if they can help it with new on type pilots.

So with the end of Flybe flights in the new year t/f Sumburgh, what will Eastern do with their E170s? Do they still have work for them?

Gossip from the corridor
 

Speculation is the white one will go back to the BACF contract and the other one will be doing ABZ-LCY. Apparently it was never the plan to keep it on the LSI route beyond the new year. All crew room gossip/theory of course.

Hard to say, EA crews are often the last ones to find anything out.
That said, Flybe’s motives and judgement in opening up these routes to the level of competition that a direct head to head with Loganair bought is questionable to say the least. Filling an aircraft with a proportion of cheap seats is great, but look at other places where it works for them and the islanders would have been stuck with 2 or 3 rotations a day to get full aircraft and a successful route.
Of course it’s a nice Teflon get out to say it was a great idea to run a 170, it’s the right aircraft and it didn’t work because our new friend wasn’t up to it.
Whether it was the right aircraft or not we won’t know now as they never tried to get in or out with 70 pax, even on a good weather day. Personally I prefer to trust the pilots who had the opinion that it was definitely not the right aircraft, either financially or operationally.

Flybe will probably try and save face by not binning EA altogether. People generally are not good as saying they’ve made a ridiculously stupid decision.
EA have done a good job at bringing down the reputation and probably lost money for Flybe. Any further involvement with EA is pure insanity. But I fear ego’s will be the primary concern not future profitable sustainability.

Isn't there a five year agreement?
I can't believe Flybe didn't see this coming.
I wonder if they will now codeshare with Loganair?

Shetland News image (of course, Flybe were never 'Here Yesterday' as it was always Loganair.)

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/images/st...t_16.51.48.png
Flybe's Ronnie Matheson behind his company's tag line, which did not quite come to pass. Photo: Shetland News

Business is business though, and Loganair might be keen to get into the regions that Flybe serves.

But yes, I totally agree that Flybe have done themselves no favours and indeed, still compete in KOI and SYY.

I can't see Eastern surviving in any form. Too many cancellations often at very short notice on their old established routes are forcing us to use alternative modes and routes. Their customer service is appalling. If you need to be in Aberdeen at a certain time don't fly with this lot.

There are crew that worked at eastern when they first went to HUM who left predicting that they would go under soon due to crewing to incompetency and constant operations stupidity.

They even at one point had 20 odd hire cars out on hire sitting in a car park in Nairn one of them had been their for 6 weeks. It was only discovered apparently when the hotel owner complained that he was running out of car parking space.

Eastern is still running 15 years later. And the word from the guys who have escaped recently is that the place is exactly the same.

The timetable says that, compared to the Eastern of 15 years ago, current Eastern is showing signs of starting to flap around looking for a role and not necessarily finding it.

Businesses have less money for flights, passengers are more tight, bigger airports are less welcoming of smaller planes, regional flying is less of a Thing all over Europe, and having been forced out its comfort zone Loganair is a real threat to what is left.

Doesn't sound like a happy ending for eastern

Eastern is still running 15 years later. And the word from the guys who have escaped recently is that the place is exactly the same.


Change the management and things will change.

You can't blame the ops staff for an airline's failing overall. They do what they are told by those above and it is those above that need to go.

Alas, until Eastern folds, they won't be going anywhere.

Just my opinion.....

I was reading somewhere last week that there is another ATR 72-600 coming to eastern airways and will be operating from February 2018. Any ideas where it will be operating out of.

all correct BUT;
oil revenues are massively down. EA used to get circa £2m a month from the SCS contract irrelevant if flights done. Now its per pax. RL had a captive audience with pilots as there were no jobs but its different now.
the commercial department think of passengers as dog food and are so incompetent they dont realise its their money it needs to survive.
I too were a doomsayer and am surprised they lasted this long.
I do believe with all this and the recent financial losses that the perfect storm is brewing

Airports such as Norwich are still promoting Eastern. The sad facts of life suggest with high fares and low passenger numbers their routes are doomed.Norwich depends on Eastern,Loganair,Flybe and KLM supported by oil industry traffic and expensive tickets.

Tbh though Norwich passengers numbers have increased on most routes looking at all the stats except Aberdeen which continues to decline, which tells you everything

I see you live in Diss Nick as I did some years ago when I would use Norwich.

However the airport is a an expensive 3rd world nightmare for those of us who fly long distance. Just google it or look at Skytrax.

It might work with a decent low cost operator but KLM are too expensive. Loganair and Eastern are also geared to the oil industry traffic. Eastern and Flybe are not in the same league as Ezy and Ryanair.

The whole pack of cards will tumble soon.

I have just flown 3 hours 40 minutes Bangkok to Hong Kong on an Air Asia Airbus for £55 and returned Macau to Bangkok with Air Asia for £60. Cost of living in Hong Kong is more expensive than the UK.

Those numbers make a mockery of airports such as Norwich and small airlines such as Eastern with 26 seat aircraft.

The one hour flight from Norwich to Amsterdam is around £150 with KLM.

Norwich to Aberdeen is £75- £100.

Plus of course the 'departure tax' of £10.00 for little more than a shed full of surly staff.

You can't compare a low cost airline and a market in different part of the world with an airport like Norwich or airlines like Eastern Airways. As for KLM their main market is onward connections not point 2 point and they know that the people who want the convenience of traveling from their doorstep will pay for it.

I disagree Jerry.


I actually learnt to fly at Cardiff 36 years ago and understand the problems. There is nothing conveniant about flying long haul from Cardiff or Norwich via Schipol as this usually involves a long layover. Heathrow is more convenient to both the above local airports to fly direct long haul and much cheaper. Cardiff and Norwich both suffer from a low catchment area.

I guess you have never had the misfortune to be stuck in Amsterdam after a long haul flight when the regional connection is cancelled.

It happens on a regular basis.

Nothing can beat Heathrow for cost and destination.

As for KLM long haul...I guess you don't travel to Asia much.

I agree Heathrow is better, but nobody can deny to continue success of KLM's operation throughout the UK from the airports you mention

KLM are both expensive and poor long haul operators.

If you have ever had the misfortune to fly to Asia with them then you will know they abysmal service on old aircraft with cabin crew to match.They are years behind Eva or China Airlines for price and service.

Their UK and European Cityhoppers are expensive to say the least.

Give me Ryanair any day. New fleet with young cabin crew and cheap fares.

I avoid traditional flag carriers who charge big money for low quality service.

Cardiff and Norwich are both around 2.5 hours from Heathrow with direct global flights.

A one way car rent is only £80 making the Schipol cost option a dead duck.

But back to Eastern...operating 28 seater aircraft to tiny UK airports is not a great business model. Their reliabilty is very poor alongside Flybe. Add to that the £10 tax departure and stasi type security staff at Norwich and you have the perfect deterent for passengers.

Eastern still have bmi for company on the ABZ run as well. Goodness knows how either make any money from it nowadays.

I have plenty of experience using KLM and Schipol travelling to the Portland Oregon in the US. I do it a couple of times a year to go see my partner. Compared to using Heathrow like my parents did recently and the 5 hours round trip for me to go get there and back traveling via Amsterdam is a doddle. Even my parents said next time they'll look at flying from Cardiff.
I've never had a flight cancelled but I have missed connections due to the weather, fog in Amsterdam. KLM put me in a very nice hotel and paid for a very nice meal and travel to the hotel and back so no complaints there. I've also found that generally price wise it's cheaper as well even cheaper than the direct flight out of Heathrow that started this year.
I pick Cardiff every time, i even have the choice of coming home via Paris CDG as well though that isn't as easy to transit as Schipol.

I'm sure Eastern will be around for a while; but maybe just not necessarily operating non-PSO scheduled services?

Someone tell Eastern's website person that they are advertising a 1 hour round trip flight from Aberdeen on Thursdays, though?

BACF are leasing a E70 from T3 for just over 2 months from 22JAN to 24MAR. The aircraft will be based at LCY and will be used operate the following flights.

BA7301/BA7302 - LCY-LIN-LCY (Mon-Sat)
BA4455/BA4456 - LCY-RTM-LCY (Mon-Fri)
BA7305/BA7306 - LCY-LIN-LCY (Sun-Fri)

Looking at Eastern schedules I see a round trip from Humberside to Aberdeen costs between £298 and £358.

I can go long haul for that.

To make matters worse the trip takes 1.45 due to a stop at Durham.:eek:

I guess like all the flights on the east coast the price is designed to milk those in the oil and gas industry.

But if you want to go from Humberside to Aberdeen whats the alternative? 6hrs 45 on the train (two changes) or 7hrs (400 miles) by road. You pays yer money and takes yer choice.

Does Eastern airways have a crew base at London City Airport...????

I don’t think they have a base at LCY. I believe they have crew based at:ABZ, NCL, LBA, MME, HUY, BRS, IOM, NWI and RDZ I think they also might have also opened a crew base at GLA when they started operating from there for BE.

Does anyone know if there are crew based in CWL for the VLY flights?.

BE’s daily flight to BHD from ABZ are now showing as being operated by T3 from Mon to Sat using a E70 starting next week.

Monday to Friday

BE1361 ABZ 07:25 LCY 09:05
BE1362 LCY 09:35 ABZ 11:55
BE153 ABZ 11:55 BHD 12:55
BE154 BHD 13:20 ABZ 14:20
BE1365 ABZ 17:20 LCY 19:00
BE1366 LCY 19:30 ABZ 21:00

Saturday

BE153 ABZ 11:25 BHD 12:25
BE154 BHD 12:50 ABZ 13:50

Sunday

BE1036 ABZ 12:55 MAN 14:05
BE1037 MAN 14:30 ABZ 15:45
BE1365 ABZ 17:20 LCY 19:00
BE1366 LCY 19:30 ABZ 21:00

I believe they do have crew based at CWL as well as engineering support.

Two hours and twenty minutes? Something's not quite right there!

Maybe they've built in some slack to meet the 0m turnaround.

Yeah should say 11:05 not 11:55.

Looks like the E70 operating on the the ABZ to LCY and ABZ to BHD routes is only a temporary thing as flights from 25MAR are showing as being operated by a DHC8.

As i mentioned in a earlier post, One of T3’s E70’s is being leased to BACF for approx 2 months . The aircraft will be LCY and will be operate to LIN and RTM. Coincidently the lease to BACF ends the day after the other E70 is due to op it’s last LCY flight.

I have heard that T3 are planning to rotate the E70 crews at LCY so that no one crew is based at LCY for more than 2-3days max. Can anyone confirm that the E70 crews are ABZ based?. If they are then that would make sense.

I think BACF might be regretting leasing the G-CIXW from T3 to operate on there behalf.

On Thursday the aircraft made a airbourne return to LCY due to a technical fault. Resulting in the cancellation of BA7305/BA7306 LCY-LIN-LCY rotation.

Yesterday afternoon the same aircraft had to replaced by a BACF E70 (G-LCYE) to operate the same rotation. Un sure if this was due to a tech problem or crew shortage. This resulted in the cancellation of the LCY-FRA-LCY rotation that the E70 should have operated.

Then this morning the aircraft has had to make yet another airbourne return (route used posted attached). Resulting in yet another round trip being cancelled. Does anyone know what is wrong with this aircraft?.

Yes, it has a techincal issue!

The issue being it`s run by cowboys :sad: