Great news that you can now get from the NE to IoM without a shlep over to Liverpool or Heysham :) . It's been a big miss (well, for me anyway) since Citywing packed in.

how many of these routes will still be operating in 12 months time?

Well, it'll be a case of use it our lose it. Lets be honest, this is a step change for Eastern compared to their recent performance.

Wonder if the LCY will be like the recent NCL operation and tie in with the ABZ flights?

Cracking set of additions for the airport!

Hopefully the routes can be fully utilised and more sun routes added soon!

Awesome news.

Do we know what frequency each of the new routes will run and timings yet?

Coincidentally, flew through the airport today and it was great to see such a buzz!

Not seen details of timings but daily for DUB, BHD, SOU, CWL, twice daily for LCY have been mentioned.

That's a lot of new flights per week for the airport. Is there really market demand for them all to be profitable ?

That said, I can see where airport management are coming from - they are in a position of either go large or go home. They have maybe 2 years to show MME can be a useful asset to the region as a busy commercial airport and be perceived as such by the voters in the region... or the airport gets sold off and converted to houses

Time to raid the reserves, gamble everything on red, and have one last spin of the roulette wheel...

Of the routes announced, demand across most should be such that if marketing and fares were poor it would almost make no difference, luckily if Eastern can practice what they preached today then we are in good hands. Cardiff and Isle of Man and possibly Southampton too might need that bit extra TLC, but there's no reason why they can't work and work well IF they are given the time to do so.

There's been mention of a three year partnership with Eastern. Price and reliability will be key - not previuosly strong points for Eastern. If they get this right DUB and BHD look like no-brainers, LCY still looks brave in competiton with the train (but could offer good onward connection opportunities), CWL is a transfer of an existing service and IOM looks like a summer fill in.

SOU is a surprise, especially if it is twice daily as suggested above. Has SOU ever been served from MME?

Yeah...by Eastern no less! November 2010 through September 2011. It is thought that their high fares coupled with the aircraft sat idle for too long during an era when you had to be airborne to be profitable were factors in the route being axed, both of which have been mitigated this time around. It is also worth noting that out of Eastern's previous expansions, which include Bristol and Brussels, Southampton was the most successful and longest lasting of the three. If they do get the fares right like they say they are, then another crack at Bristol must be a no brainer given the EE connection.

Yes, Eastern served Southampton before; once or twice daily. It was at a time when they were trying new things such as Brussels. Neither lasted long...hopefully with volume, bigger aircraft and more realiability, it could be different this time.

Cheers - don't remember that! So not the shot in the dark I was thinking of.

Mind you, the new route doesn't seem to have been noticed by SOU yet....

I really hope to god that Eastern have learned their lesson and will deploy bigger aircraft in order to get lower average fares. It could work if the aircraft used are ATR-72's or Q400's

Eastern tried LCY-NCL twice and failed. Both had poor service with frequent delays and cancellations so lets see if this is any better.

Congratulations to all the team at MME for acquiring these new routes. I well remember when SEN was struggling to attract operators/routes pre-EZY and it's great when you achieve something like this.

I wonder if there will be any useful through bookable connecting flights via some of these new destinations: that might help to make them more viable.

According to their website they fly from 'Durham Tees Valley'

Anyone any idea what aircraft they will be using for the new routes, will it be the Jetstream 41 and the Saab 2000??

Couple of additional snippets from the Eastern website:

No mention of the 'F' word at todays announcement

Does this mean IOM just for the TT weeks??

Airline to develop major network from Teesside International

Knowing how Eastern work, I expect they will be paying very little to the airport for operating out of there. I will be certain a very large sweetener has been offered by TIA for them to come in and operate the routes there.

Unfortunately, given the state of the Fleet and reliability, I can’t see them making much of a success with these routes and it will gradually falter over time. Unless of course a re-Fleet is on the cards?

According to today's announcement, flight times are approx:

MME>LCY: 07:45-09:00
LCY>MME: 19:45-21:00

Not sure when the reverse flights will take place but these seem pretty good for a work day in London.

Surprised that Tony Burgess, the MD of Eastern, didn't seem to know that Dublin offered US pre-clearance.

It sounded very much like it to me.

Great news and a good kick start with a business orientated network. Still room for more if they prove popular I'm sure with each aircraft only doing three flights a day there's still going to be space in the schedule.

Agree with mmeteesside great news on the new routes, but sorry, slight concern they haven't attracted an additional operator.

3x E190s are on order and the E170 is due back. Not sure if they'll be allocated to MME though...

Which of these MME routes would warrant a E190?

Not sure launch of a few short haul Eastern routes translate to launch of 'sun routes' ?

Pretty sure that they stated in an article that they'll be for ACMI work. Probably with LCY as a target.

I don't think Eastern will be going anywhere near LCY on an ACMI after last time's fiasco.

The schedule bounces about before settling down with 2 x J41 and 1 x S20 based at MME when everything is running by the end of May.

Saab 2000 on 2 x LCY and 1 x DUB
J41 on 2 x SOU, 1 x ABZ
J41 on 2 x ABZ, 1 x CWL, 1 x BHD

There's no statement on when flights will go on sale or where. Mention of Flybe was very much absent from yesterday's announcement and I can't tell if Eastern is playing down the Flybe element or Flybe is distancing itself from Eastern. Or possibly both!!!

Albert have you got a link to where all that info is?
Just all articles yesterday pointed to 37 extra flights and adding of 185,000 seats which doesn't add up if you only base 1 S2000 and two J41.
Otherwise they are trying to include the Aberdeen in the added 185,000.

onion

What's your calculation then as to the annual capacity increase on offer? I make it about 163,000 per annum excluding IOM.

I'm just saying the numbers dont add up!
But a s2000 3 rotation a day 6 days a week gives around 93,000 extra seats so on that rough basis you'd need two S2000 based to add an extra 185,000.
Very rough calculation.
Which is why I asked for a link if possible.

It would not surprise me if the IOM sector ends up as MME-IOM-BHD-IOM-MME as the routes bed down.

I make it about 146,000 new seats per year - it's certainly not 180,000 unless you count in Aberdeen.

London City 10 weekly flights x 50 seats x 52 weeks = 52,000
Southampton 10 weekly flights x 29 seats x 52 weeks = 30,160
Dublin 6 weekly flights x 50 seats x 52 weeks = 31,200
Belfast 6 weekly flights x 29 seats x 52 weeks = 18,096
Cardiff 5 weekly flights x 29 seats x 52 weeks = 15,080
Adds up to 37 new weekly flights (as announced) but 146,536 seats before allowing for any reductions in holidays / quiet months.

As the saab 2000 only hold a maximum of 50 seats, surely if the flights to LCY or dublin work well due to the flight schedule times then surely they will have to up the aircraft size to
perhaps the 170 or 190, Who knows, time will tell.

Roger Hage, Eastern Airways’ General Manager Commercial and Operations, said: “We are pleased to see the return of the E-Jets to our fleet giving us an entry into new ad-hoc charter and ACMI markets, alongside an option to evolve our scheduled service network, especially as we expand this fleet through the year.”

Are none of your passengers making a return trip? Looks more like 280k seats...

E-jets
 

I’ve absolutely no doubt they’ll be after the Airbus contract (CEG-BRS-TLS) for their Ejets - which Loganair currently operate after Flybmi’s demise...

As it stand now we get all four aircraft types on the current Aberdeen run.

Eastern might as well just move completely to Teesside plenty of office and hangar space for maintenance.

If you do the maths yourself, you will find that those are two-way seats. 73,000 departing Teesside and the same number coming back.

A lot of these calculations seem to be based on 2x J41 and a Saab, but I think it's going to be 2x Saab and one J41. Could be wrong mind.