There was some in storage I believe anyway, and I'm gathering what they had at SEN and other BE operations plus reduced services and some dropped routes elsewhere.

Before the collapse of flyBe there were 2 each on the Isle of Mann and at Southend. Stobart have announced the closure of both those bases, so that makes four. There will also be capacity freed up at the other bases, predominantly DUB. GLA does seem an omission at present - the LM schedule is pretty good and fares not bad either, STK probably don't feel the need to compete at this stage. the cougars are empty enough without slogging it out at this stage. I think STK were denied most of the LGW slots? Of course IAG and VS do have a large slot pool that they may wish to protect by leasing them to Stobart - but BA have their own services to LCY and LHR, LGW wouldn't add much for them.

They’re also returning 3, EI-GPN/O/P so I’d say they’ll still need to find some form of extra capacity.

Those are ex flyBe on the SAS contract and delivered early this year. I don't think Stobart operated them in scheduled service? Or if they did it was brief.

Belfast City - Leeds Bradford increases from 13x to 16x weekly from October 26th

EI3670 BHD 0650 LBA 0800 Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa --
EI3676 BHD 1455 LBA 1605 Mo ------- Th Fr -- Su
EI3678 BHD 1820 LBA 1930 Mo Tu We Th Fr -- Su

EI3671 LBA 0830 BHD 0945 Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa --
EI3677 LBA 1635 BHD 1750 Mo ------- Th Fr -- Su
EI3679 LBA 2000 BHD 2115 Mo Tu We Th Fr -- Su

Interesting that they do not see potential for some more "thin" routes just like the EXT service that could keep the ATRs busy between 11 am and 4 pm. Obviously they do not see a point in competing with easyjet from BFS on routes such as NCL, IOM or LPL. But there are also unserved destinations such as CWL.

I would suspect rhat this will all be very much a use it or lose it schedule that will be subject to some teeeking in the months ahead. I would not be surprised to see additional destinations appear especially next summer, JER or NQY for example come to mind. Some left field destinations could be SEN or ORK

Yeah it was very brief, I remember seeing GPP and GPN operating quite a bit from memory, seen GPO only a few days after it entered service from Dublin. GPP however wasn’t in long as far as I know.

Stobart still have

EI-FMJ was painted in flybe livery now white
EI-FSK White
EI-FSL White
EI-GPP White
EI-GPN withdrawn not sure if going elsewhere
EI-GPO being transferred to Sky express

Quite possibly will happen but I'd say they've allowed themselves the opportunity to increase frequency as demand allows, that's been suggested in the press release. Demand likely won't be like before given C19 but some of these routes sustained 7 daily so I'd say that will be the first thing that will be done.

EXT is going daily from 28.03.21

From what I heard it was all the GPx that we’re due to go. I suppose only time will tell.

I see Ezy has just rolled out its latest round of cancellations for Bfs flights into September. Either Ezy are being seriously pessimistic or Stobart are being very overly optimistic. It will be interesting to see if all these flights operate as put on sale today.

You could argue these EIR schedules are ambitious. But then if FlyBe as an entity had survived what do we imagine they would have continued to offer from BHD (reminder to BFS aficionados, BE didn’t fold because of BHD)? I’ve been affected a fair bit by EZY hashing and rehashing their BFS-BRS schedule, but am grateful it exists at all at the minute. The fact EIR feels able (for now) to start these routes should be welcomed. If C19 ends up reducing frequency then I’m sure they’ll do what EZY have done: offer a comprehensive schedule from their base airport initially, then can it when it’s apparently not viable.

Exactly, great slack in the schedule on return of 1st wave aircraft, summer seasonal routes come to mind like Jersey and Isle of Man (a daily mid morning would work fine and just make an easyJet airbus operation unattractive to them, it's a hop at circa 70 miles. Other opportunities might be Cardiff as a daily leisure orientated route, Cork has potential perhaps an early departure from ORK to BHD (and vv) and staging on to say BHX, BHD may also provide flexibility for the BHX and EDI to Shannon routes which were ideally timed to meet the Transatlantic services ex Shannon, but that's all clearly for a later date. Donegal could be worth a try, if marketed properly could be a surprise.
​​​​​​A flight to Shannon every other day might also be worthy of consideration once the US get over the pandemic, feeding passengers to the US ...

The volumes on these routes when served by Flybe were impressive particularly MAN and BHX. Given the lower capacity and the reduced demand, no reason why EIR can't capture a respectable share of the market...

I agree that there may be room for expansion to perhaps include other destinations, but don't think Shannon or Cork would be among them.

Flybe seemed to run a lot of marginal or even unprofitable routes so I'm sure if Cork was even vaguely viable they would have tried it. They would presumably have had some data on the route as from what I recall it was operated as a Flybe franchise by Manx2 before the tragic crash. I think the ATR planes would just be too big for the route. If it was going to work it would need a smaller plane and Eastern or Loganair would be better placed for this.

I can't see the point of a flight to Shannon as I don't think there would be the point to point demand. It would also make little sense for connecting traffic from Belfast as there is a direct bus from Belfast to Dublin Airport which takes less than two hours. Dublin provides a much wider range of destinations than Shannon and will also benefit from lower taxes than a ticket starting in Belfast. An even wider range of destinations from Belfast is provided by BA connecting in Heathrow (or Aer Lingus connecting to their partners via Heathrow).

Hopefully it is successful for them as competition will hopefully keep Easyjet prices competitive.

Flybe seemed to run a lot of marginal or even unprofitable routes so I'm sure if Cork was even vaguely viable they would have tried it. They would presumably have had some data on the route as from what I recall it was operated as a Flybe franchise by Manx2 before the tragic crash. I think the ATR planes would just be too big for the route. If was going to work it would need a smaller plane and Eastern or Loganair would be better placed for this.

Flybe had nothing to do with Manx2. BHD-ORK was not operated as Flybe franchise. Pure Manx2 operation

Do you suggest a BHD-CFN route on an ATR72? For starters, it is hardly 120 miles...

Apologies, I've obviously got completely mixed up. I think I'm confusing this and the Flybe incident where it 'crash' landed safely at Belfast International (from Belfast City) without front landing gear,

The EI service to JFK via SNN from BFS in the 1990s regularly had more pax for SNN than to JFK. Mostly weekend breaks and golfing breaks.The MD11 N272WA was a cow to trim that used to operate the sevice.