Doesn't look like it. The aircraft departed this morning a T39615 to NCL

Announcement about what?:)

BAladdy

Must been private chapter

Aer Lingus appear to be staring BHD-NQY in late June. Flights not on sale but are showing up as a destination

I believe NQY and a couple of other routes have been mentioned alright.

Any idea what other routes could be on the table? And are these likely to be Aer Lingus Regional flights or another carrier?

I believe Stobart looking at a couple of options. I must admit I would have thought we verymuch at about it with destinations

Would be great news if Stobart announced more routes. As you have said it's hard to know where else they may operate that isnt already covered.

Potentially, a route to the London area, Gatwick has been mentioned previously but maybe Southend. I wonder if they would potentially operate to Jersey.

Given the new ownership we may see routes to Isle of Man and to Carlise being operated by Stobart.

NCL has had several attempts with a link to BHD...maybe time for another go.

If wanting to start other Routes from BHD Ettyl/Stobart

Could run as Eyttl or a franchise for another airline for routes for CAX, NCL and LGW.

ATR Would be to big for CAX unless able to use JS41 for this.

ATR72 used to NCL.

For LGW would need to be a Jet so would need to use E170/E190 on this

Unfortunately, Stobart no longer have their jets. Fleet solely the ATR.

It will be interesting to see if Stobart continue to operate on behalf of other airlines or indeed if they start to sell their own tickets etc.

The route from Belfast to Cork still remains on the table if rumours can be believed.

With the current state of affairs and coverage of routes by a number of airlines is there any scope for Flybe to make a comeback to BHD??

A number of formerly DUB based crew being brought back from furlough to work the BHD operation so they're obviously planning a ramp up.

Wasn’t there some commitment to locally based ex Flybe crew in BHD as part of the support for the base? How does that fit with drafting furloughed DUB crews to cover...

They already have them. They are furloughed as well. I think they just swopping around staff to give them all some flying hours.

Are you sure that Stobart took on any Flybe guys? I was under the impression Stobart didnt take any onboard. Issues with the licences of Flybe guys and well the slump in demand the reasons why.

100% certain they took on ex BHD cabin crew.

Southampton route
 

I'm mindful that the Eastern brand isn't well known in Belfast. Searching for flights to Southampton you either check Eastern Airways website or online travel agents who seem to have their highest classes of inventory at very high prices example stg 254 one way for the near dates that I checked, also looking at September the same well known online travel agent shows no availability. In my opinion I don't see Eastern as bring the brand to drive this route forward, its needs a well known brand like Aer Lingus Regional or Loganair etc.

​​​​​Flights SOU-BHD go X2 Monday to Friday from 8th September not much difference in prices when you add a bag with other airlines as in Aer Lingus, Loganair

OK Allan, fair point, my intension wasnt so much about price really, I was meaning to focus on brand recognition and the general public, I'm not convinced this is the airline to optimise the opportunities that will exist on this route.

I see where you coming from though, general public here wouldn't know Eastern well as Flybe or Aer Lingus more since only 2 routes SOU and CWL and at time MME. I guess if ran few more routes say LGW and NCL possibly CAX might help even if include a codeshare.

I think we need to taper our expectations in regards to any further major announcements this side of the summer. At the end of the day the airport is in a really enviable position. Who could’ve visioned that this time last year? Don’t get me wrong we can all be wishful however right now I wouldn’t be expecting anything drastically above what is present now.

On SOU I certainly feel the same. Certainly not really Eastern’s fault given we were never a target market for them. After all we are one of the westernmost regions in the UK/ROI, a long way from core markets of years gone by. It is next to impossible to judge success for us however now. It’s going to take these published schedules to actually come into action and be given time to mature. I’ll hope for the best however!

EI-BUD

Personally I agree that a higher profile brand would generate extra traffic for Eastern, particularly if they were to operate as a British Airways or Aer Lingus Regional franchisee. Unfortunately British Airways don't seem too interested in franchising these days (although they do still have a couple in Sun Air and Comair), and I suppose the current Aer Lingus Regional franchise with Stobart might block that as an option. I guess Loganair would be a candidate, but is it really that much bigger and higher profile to be worth a franchise fee.

I notice that Loganair flights from Southampton To Edinburgh and Newcastle are available for sale on British Airways website and app under a BA codeshare (without need for a connecting flight). Maybe Eastern could agree a similar codeshare deal with BA to increase their profile.

I have the same opinion as you all but from the SOU end. I'm grateful to Eastern for stepping in when Flybe collapsed but they're just not as well known as some other carriers and so may not attract as many passengers. I guess the only consolation is that if they ever pull off the route or go out of business themselves (not that I wish to see that happen) one of the carriers already mentioned would undoubtedly take the route on.

I think this one needs time. Eastern have a reasonable network from SOU planned for this summer, which will probably open them up to a number of customers (NI, ROI, regional France, Gibraltar) who've never used them before and hopefully get the name out there a little more. They have a reasonable product with two modern ATR's operating most flights so may be able to make a bit of a name for themselves at the SOU end at least. I believe they had taken on a few ex Flybe CC so there may be an element of word of mouth there.

Hopefully it is still going ahead but they also announced a codeshare with Aurigny late last year, which would theoretically allow easy connections to Guernsey and Alderney from Belfast and others or vice versa if timings get aligned.

Vueling announced BCN twice per week from 2 July, Mon and Fri

Has anyone told the airport? They knew nothing about it apperantly

Good to see EIR expanding at BHD.

Any news on a LGW service?

Commercial suicide in my view if they go anywhere near LGW with ATR's.

I didn't know they had decided to do LGW from BHD. Are they not prevented under the terms of the BMI sale,?

Stobart Air did applied for BHD-LGW slots and got these but just can't as sold as EI or BA flights , but could fly as Ettyl or for another Airline
and as to be a jet though they dont have any.

Also seen that Eastern Airways is adding new routes at airports / hubs they already serve so could use their E170 or E190 to LGW

https://www.traveldailynews.com/post...ice-resumption

What would be the reason that they could not operate under the EI brand ? That's something I have not heard of. There is also no block on using props either, just that the pricing regime would favour the use of larger aircraft and I'm sure that in these lean times, deals with airports can be made.

Never heard of that. Why can't they use them?

allan1987

I believe Eastern's E190 will be operating their recently announced SOU-GIB-BHX-GIB-SOU flights.

Considering that U2 already serves BFS from LGW (and LTN & STN), and with BA & EI's flights serving both LCY & LHR, I personally can't see BHD-LGW working out, but I could be wrong.

Allan - that's complete tosh. Stobart applied for slots at Gatwick and withheld the destination for those slots when they did so. They had also talked about expansion plans at BHD around the same time. You - or whoever told you this - have added 2+2 and most probably got 5. They have never signalled flying BHD-LGW and it's an idea of someone's own creation. I'd heard that their LGW slot bid was for the Newquay PSO but I can't say for sure if that's true or not, so I won't pretend to know.

The franchise position is that any route has to be agreed by Aer Lingus to be a franchise service which is the same across pretty much every franchise. I understand they could not fly the E190s as Aer Lingus franchise aircraft but as they no longer have them, it's now irrelevant.

Loganair have removed GLA from sale until the 1st of September. Any ideas why?

Not selling probably or Stobart taking it over. Hasn't been running for a while. EMA is the same. I think stoll a lot bedding down to take place on routes but the new Stormount domestic route support scheme might help.

I think the brutal truth is that a lot of these routes that were launched in the face of the pandemic simply will still have too much capacity for the foreseeable. I'd expect other airlines to keep optimising their offering as well, launching more leaner routes this summer as opposed to a strong focus on previous trunk routes. Hopefully this isn't the future post-2021 but we will just have to deal with these withdrawals up until the end of the year I'm afraid. LM have cut a vast amount of frequencies on GLA/EDI-SOU and ABZ-MAN/BHX amongst others today so it isn't an isolated issue and it will just take time.

Agree probably see some contraction on some, growth on others as we really don't know what way people will travel when restrictions lifted or even if the business type travellers will return in any great numbers.

Yeah that's the exact issue really. The re-emergence and attitudes are looking really inconsistent which is a shame, but perhaps not unexpected. I probably wouldn't have been travelling internationally this summer but I was planning on travelling BHD-GLA-LDY a fair bit which now can't happen. Out of all the routes which have seen the cuts I am a little feared GLA-BHD may not return in it's present form. No real other reason than out of all the routes that have been launched in the wake of this by LM, it has been one of the ones that hasn't operated for such a protracted period and been put back for numerous long stints which this one being another big one. It does funnily enough operate next week twice on an ER4/SF3 which I presume is for some sort of corporate customer but it looks liking BFS-GLA may be proving a little strong for LM. I'll hope for the best mind you!