"Stobart Air was only saved to prevent group collapse - MD"

The Irish Independent reports (my emphasis):

I have heard that Stobart Air has applied for slots from Belfast City to BHX, MAN, EDI and LGW, if Stobart is not putting money towards this
they must be getting money from one of three places to run these either from NI Executive, Cyrus Capital or IAG
https://www.pressreader.com/category/tag-540250998

from this will just have to see what announcements come from Belfast City Airport this week and next, could be quite interesting

Would the backers of BHD potentially invest in airline to keep airport viable until such timex as it can be sold. The chat around BHD does seem to indicate thatvthe Sobart flights are happening

It's likely very much in certain people's interests to insist that these flights will happen. And they may well launch.

From the previous post it's likely that Cyrus and IAG won't be at the front of the queue to bankroll. And it will be interesting to see how the other named party squares off their participation in the project.

It does look very much like a house of cards waiting to unravel, particularly in the current operating environment, but then again time bought no matter how short will have a value to those directly driving the idea.

So if the backers of Bhd provide support to Stobart, what will the other operators and Bhd think?

BFS fan club cage rattled alert!!!
Probably not much difference to putting up money to start a route
One year left of 3 year deal and established routes for new buyer of airline.
Helps sell the airline and also safety net should EIR not keep the regional contract
Could probably put this in a better way but home brew is ready today for the weekend

No Bfs fan club rattled here. I am just curious how some of the members of the Bhd fan club believe that an airline that was saved from bankruptcy very recently, as per the details in post No 581, quoting notes from a crisis meeting 2 weeks ago and that the airline was only saved to prevent the whole group going under, has the funds to start a bunch of new routes at Bhd?

Does anyone have any informed indication on the level of investment that would be required for an airline to start new routes and open a base at Belfast City?

Will be interesting to see what new routes Brain Ambrose hinted would be announced within two weeks.

Still got ATR's ex BE? Crew furloughed? Using EI for sales/bookings? If they have excess capacity would the start up costs be much more than continuing to do nothing?

The ATRs were Stobart metal
Crew Also but would need boring if opening a base in BHD can’t see the ex-SEN crew or IOM crew relocate to BHD
and I’m pretty sure EI said they don’t want anything with Stobart outside of DUB/Ireland

In defense of Stobart, the facts are that their Aer Lingus Regional business has been successful and noted as the better piece of Stobart Group's portfolio in recent times. Airlines mostly everywhere have been immeasurably impacted by the pandemic and only a few are financially strong enough to weather this storm, and others get bail outs eg Lufthansa. The business will come back, timelines are unclear. So whether Stobart for a recent bailout of not is a mute point.

Airports investing in airlines is not customary, however if the owner of BHD did invest on commercial terms that's another matter.

I don't believe that the above investment scenario is on the cards. The fundamental issue here is about the brand and distribution. The EI contract has very limited time left, and its been publicly stated that EI will pursue all avenues in terms of the right airline for the franchise. What at this juncture is in it for Aer Lingus? Unless BHD has given concessions to EI on operational costs? These would apply to BA, under the IAG procurement umbrella. There is limited strategic value for EI in expanding the EI Regional brand at BHD. They add value feeding passengers into the TA network.

As a consequence Stobart will need to build a new brand for BHD. This doesn't sound promising to me. However, as a counter balance, encouraging to see BHD regaining some lost services via Loganair, Eastern and BA.


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Just worth pointing out EIR do routes from SNN and ORK which don't feed into DUB, in fact ORK has several routes to UK cities that have been mentioned as possible from BHD - MAN, BHX, EDI etc.

Of course they do Mart901, but in these instances they don't have the sort of competition that Belfast would have from easyJet etc. They are long established under the EI brand. Whereas 'if' the suggested BHD flights took off under the EIR brand, they may not be long lived in that guise if Stobart were not successful in maintaining the franchise.

Jetmagic flew to Cork for a bit and had good loads. Just the wrong type of aircraft, but unknown name.
So it's possible if Regional do it for a bit then they become Air Arran (not Aer Arran) or FlyUThere name may not matter.

Stobart don't have a booking system and I simply cannot seem them establishing one now. Since the Aer Arann days they have operated under either the EI or BE reservations system and EI were not willing for them to use their branding for the SEN European routes, as had been originally hoped, so BE stepped in. The chances of a Stobart route network based at IOM and/or BHD looks very slim to me.

So you could end up with a Manx2 situation but better regulation. That would work !

Of course it is entirely logical that Aer lingus would be reluctant to have the brand used in Southend. What’s in it for Aer lingus. However .... Aer lingus have an established operation at Belfast city already and it would make commercial sense to expand that presence.

I don’t think any delay is coming from Aer lingus fo be honest

The argument about competition is valid especially given the situation we are in now and the effect on demand. However BE were running 7x daily on similar sized aircraft on MAN/BHX up against U2. If you look at what LM are doing with GLA for instance - starting from just 2x daily, less than half the previous frequency with BE and smaller a/c, I seriously doubt these routes are totally unviable which supported high volumes at often higher fares than from BFS.
Also the EI brand is very well established here not only from BFS+BHD but also DUB where swathes of people drive to to catch flights from Northern Ireland.

Pilot and CC jobs for Belfast are now advertised on their website.

For Winter 2020 the ATR Planes based at airports need to be?

1x CFN, 2x ORK, 1x KIR, 5x DUB, 5x BHD
that is 14 ATR Planes I think will need EI-GPN back so to have 15 ATRs