It was indeed and same today. So 1 A320 for LHR, 1 for MAN/BHX and cover both DUB & BHD - EDI with 1 A320 from DUB.

EI-DVN is currently positioning in from DUB.

There is a morning departure to LHR, EDI & MAN requiring 3 A320s. The DUB aircraft no longer operates DUB-EDI-BHD-EDI-DUB

Be interesting to see where this all goes, my flights in a couple of weeks to BHX are sitting at £575 return as it stands.........

I really feel for the staff of Stobart Air must be tough in this environment particularly when a few of them already lost jobs when Flybe went down. It is beginning to look like BHD is the graveyard of airlines, trying to compete with EasyJet is becoming well nigh impossible

I'm not sure EZY is particularly the issue, going back before even Stobart, RE were in and out of basket case status fairly frequently. They'd a solid network in plenty of places other than BHD where EZY aren't, particularly operating transatlantic feed for EI. In many respects BE were the same, bad financial situation in the background.

would be good of they were made permanent, but I suspect not.
Who would have thought BA on GLA-BFS again…?!

Well, as they’re flying to BHD, rather than BFS, probably no one.

As an aside. Has anyone with a booking heard anything from Aer Lingus regarding refunds/transfers etc? As is typical with airlines these days, it’s easier to make contact with the dead than their customer services.

yea, took a few days and I got a text and email, mine was a simple flight swap on BHX and resulted in a 5 minute timing change, it's actually a benefit all in all as I can take a full size cabin bag on EI mainline as opposed to the slightly smaller ones on EIR - what I was finding was with EZY the flights would be cheaper then adding a cabin bag/seat under the new rules meant EIR was cheaper.

Thanks Mart. I have EXT and LBA bookings, so was wondering if these will get changed to BA.

I guess it makes good sense for CFE to get their aircraft up doing something rather than idling around all summer.

Whether they remain on the routes past the summer is another matter. I suspect crewing logistics might cause a headache but I guess most will just be glad to back in the saddle over the summer months.

Couldn't say, would hope so. I found physically logging into my EI account as opposed to the app and going to my trips, this section of the website wouldn't allow me to amend the booking, then a second booking appeared underneath with the new times. Not sure that would happen if it's transferred to BA but might help.
The contact centre will be flat out with enquiries and I'm sure less staffing than normal given the times we're in generally.
If you work on the basis the further away your booking is the longer they're likely to be informing you, given the flights with BA have only just been announced and loaded up it might be a day or so yet.

Cheers Mart. I’ll wait a few days before looking at alternatives.

easyJet
 

easyJet to London Gatwick loading into the system at 2 daily from July.

This is a spoiler for sure

Price of BA flights to LBA have dropped dramatically since the EZY announcement, looking on various dates in summer if you want to bring even a cabin suitcase its cheaper on BA.

All good to see but I wonder if this is mostly staycation type of business. How long term is it when places start opening up

EI have confirmed they will continue to run Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh until late August.

Easyjet to LGW is a great addition.

That probably covers most of the forward sales that would have been operated on Stobart. Also gets the DUB based crew flying again I suppose

Where is it confirmed that EI will continue flights to/from BHX, EDI and MAN? It's certainly not on their website which has no availability from 18th July for these routes.

I booked a few weeks ago for 25th July, when I go into Manage my Booking my original reservation comes up and still shows as confirmed and being operated by Stobart Air and I can even book and pay for a seat on a seat map that is clearly an ATR....

I've not had any communication from EI to say that this flight is cancelled or what they are going to do about it. I appreciate they were apparently caught short by Stobart but this is very poor customer service indeed. Wish I'd booked with EasyJet instead!!

Front of the website tap where it says about the travel disruption/more information at the top. The flights won't be on sale as they are manually moving customers bookings where appropriate etc.
You may see this under the my trips section of your account with them, there may be a second booking there and you'll not be able to amend it currently while they are.
They seem to be working on August at the moment and they say they're working on plans for past that, I'd imagine the uncertainty in Ireland covering the Dublin base and what they can and can't fly isn't helping matters. I think it took them about 4/5 days or so from the announcement to my June flights being ammended.

There's been hardly any flights on sale until recently and given the pent up demand for domestic routes currently putting them on sale before they've accommodated everyone who was booked on regional could be a much bigger customer service issue than not informing you as promptly as would be expected.

Agree I think in short term these are very much rescue flights for pre seat sales as loads seem to reflect this.. I suspect the crewing logistics alone must be a nightmare but I am sure it will sort itself out eventually to a more workable schedule and fare structure.

The fares did drop down on the flights I'm booked onto this month a few days after I was moved onto it, some fares down to £29 one way, but still not a full schedule and indeed I agree it's a temporary arrangement they never planned for, they've salvaged as much as they can I think.

​​​​​​Aer Lingus did say would run until end of summer on 6 routes. But nothing has been put on sale from 18th July. Also was mentioned that Cardiff and East Midlands is cancelled until 27th June, so may be possible that EDI, BHX, CWL and EMA will move to BA Cityflyer, and Aer Lingus will still operate flights to MAN.

I see that Esken is looking for someone to sublease their 8 ATRs until April 2023 not sure if Emerald or BA Cityflyer would be interested in this

GayFriendly

Details of Aer Lingus Regional Replacement Schedule

Aer Lingus will operate six routes until at least the end of August 2021 and is progressing plans for services beyond this date, details of which will be announced shortly. BA CityFlyer has announced that it will operate four routes for the rest of Summer 2021 period.

Operations by Aer Lingus

Belfast - Edinburgh
Belfast - Manchester
Belfast - Birmingham
Dublin - Manchester
Dublin - Edinburgh
Dublin - Glasgow

Operations by BA CityFlyer until at least 31st August 2021

Belfast - Leeds Bradford
Belfast - Exeter
Belfast - Glasgow (starts 2nd August 2021)
Belfast - Newquay (starts 3rd July 2021)

https://www.aerlingus.com/support/fl...n-information/

Thanks to everyone for your replies to my post about BHX-BHD flights!

My booking is still showing as confirmed on a Stobart operated ATR and I can still book a seat....

I guess they will get round to updating and re-confirming my reservation now it appears they are continuing flights until end of Aug. This must be a huge amount of work given the scale of re-bookings, refunds and flight changes they're having to deal with. Having said that, a quick, generic email to all customers affected to reassure them that their reservation will be honoured and some idea as to what and when would have been appreciated, particularly in light of the fact that alternative flights from BHX, MAN and LPL have absolutely shot up in price since Stobart pulled the plug.

EI to run the routes until end of October (end of summer schedule) and all on sale.

The routes currently operated by BA city flyer are shown as “Sold Out” from the 1st of September. Prior to that the website returns no results at all. I think 31st of August is the last confirmed BA Cityflyer pertain to LBA and EXT.

Maybe BACF only taking old ,Stobart bookings until.

I only looked at a couple of dates in July and August on the BACF service to Leeds Bradford, but it was certainly available to book on the BA app. There were even business class seats for sale so I think they are certainly taking bookings to the end of August. I doubt BACF will continue with the non London flights after August, but I can live in hope!

Sorry, I meant on the Aer Lingus website. As it currently stands the EI website shows BHD-LBA as "no flights" until the 31st of August and "Sold Out" after that date. I guess there is no concrete plan for flights op by Cityflyer after that date. As one poster notes, BA seem to be offering Club on BHD-LBA, I wonder what uptake will be like.
I share pessimism that Cityflyer won't be in the non-LCY domestic market long term. But their network was so reliant on business travel pre-covid that nothing can be ruled out. I think LCY had the highest proportion of business travel for any airport in London, possibly globally. 45% of travel at LCY was said to be business, 25% at Heathrow, 15% at Gatwick and 13% at Stansted.

I think post Covid anything is possible now with airlines but short medium term all the money is probably domestic with a sprinkle of business/European customers. The recent announcement of funding from the NI Government to support domestic routes might keep them a bit longer on the route.

BA selling Business Class seats now on the Embraers. The seats are identical, you get a snack and a drink in Y anyway - business gives lounge access, better luggage allowance etc.

Emerald Airlines to start in October with 14 ATR 72-600's that they will use on routes from Belfast City, Cork, Dublin, Donegal and Kerry,
BACF may stay at but change to different routes, possibly bhd to lgw and and at busy times to man/bhx/lba

I won't hold my breath just yet on Emerald Airways. No doubt it will happen but not getting over excited just yet.

Aer Lingus have put on flights on for sale for to EDI, MAN and BHX for W21.

im guessing Emerald is going to look after dublin routes only for W21

Interesting to see what routes and times will BA CityFlyer for operate W21

I suppose they could always change the operator or aircraft type later on. At least they operating the flights