Eastern to ops SOU-BRU

[Dash-7 lover]

I hear Eastern are to take on the SOU-BRU route when VLM pull off to concentrate on LCY-IOM.... J41 or Saab2000??

[dwlpl]

Listed by Amadeus as a Dornier 328!

[Dash-7 lover]

Ah, maybe it's a wet lease until their 2 new ex American J41's are ready????

[spanishflea]

It was originally strongly rumoured to be operated by ScotAir and not Eastern. ScotAir of course operate the D328...

[mmeteesside]

Corporate Jet Services (bsd Southampton) have just added 2 Dornier 328's, 1 prop and 1 jet, co-incidence??

Also, sorry for being off topic slightly, but Amadeus also shows Eastern's ABZ-NWI route as 4x daily, 3 J41's and 1 Saab 2000 for the winter :confused:

[spanishflea]

Corporate Jet Services 328JET is in an Envoy business configuration. However the prop was half-scheduled to go to Great Plains Airlines before they went into Chapter 11, which would indicate it is in pax config.

They recently got rid of their 328JET in pax config which was planned to operate for Euromanx originally I believe, but has now gone to Sun-Air.

[david_wilding]

Official release on their website now, Eastern Airways are to do the SOU-BRU route!!

Eastern Airways (http://www.easternairways.com/press/BRUSOU_Oct05.html)

[parttimer]

Hi.
Vlm pulled out of the SOU BRU route due to the fact that their pax numbers have not really picked up since taking over the route from bacx. Eastern will start the route on nov 1st with initially at dornier 328 (not scot airways) and then at xmas it will be taken over by the saab with a j41 to follow sonetime in the new year.
Not sure if pax numbers will pick up for eatern either, the businessmen just don't seem to want to travel on a prop. The route has never been the same since it was taken off the bacx emb145 and put onto the dash.
However having said that and not meaning to be cruel to eastern they seem to be able to operate perfectly well with very little pax loads. quite often the sou lba has 2 or 3 on it. can they be still making money??

[Meeb]

the businessmen just don't seem to want to travel on a prop

Again people show their ignorance... :mad:

Scotairways EDI - LCY route is very popular with "Businessmen" (whatever they are), due to frequency and time keeping. The fact it is a turbo prop is neither here nor there, although the Do328 is way superior to the Jetstream. It is the product which sells, not the equipment.

If Eastern are to evolve they really need to ditch the old generation of turbo props and upgrade.

The future of regional aviation is turbo prop... :p

[Flightrider]

Barking mad. It now appears as though Eastern have 12 bases for the operation of 24 aircraft. They are long over-due for a radical rationalisation of bases to cut crew and engineering costs, but they seem to keep on adding bases instead of working out how to operate the same routes from a reduced number of bases. Quite mad.

It leaves them 100% exposed to any competitor entering a route (not necessarily SOU-BRU) and until they focus on five or six bases instead of 12, they will never start to see any reduction in seat/mile costs. For as long as this is the case, the Flybe Q400s can continue to cause major damage on Eastern's key routes like NCL-SOU, NWI-ABZ, LBA-SOU etc. If they cut their costs, they could start to either a) make big profits to withstand competition or b) lower fares to grow markets to avoid someone else doing it for them.

T3 bases : Aberdeen, Southampton, Leeds Bradford, Newcastle, Manchester, Inverness, Wick, Nottingham EMA, TeesSide, Norwich, Humberside, Isle of Man

[Dash-7 lover]

As has been said - the equipment doesn't matter. Eastern's product is worlds away from Flybe. Eastern aren't trying to be lo-cost so have created their own niche market. The fact that you might have a handfull of people on a J41 doesn't account for anything. I'd be more concerned with a 76 people on a Dash-8-400 paying peanuts that 3 or 4 paying alot more.

FLYBE might be full most of the time but the revenue would be virtually non-existant and it wouldn't take much to wipe that out.

Club revenue should be high for Eastern ....good luck

[Mister Geezer]

It now appears as though Eastern have 12 bases for the operation of 24 aircraft. They are long over-due for a radical rationalisation of bases to cut crew and engineering costs, but they seem to keep on adding bases instead of working out how to operate the same routes from a reduced number of bases

Crew and engineering costs won't increase as much as you think... if at all! Opening up a new base won't have an affect on crew costs since you will need the extra crew to operate the route regardless of where they are based. Eastern don't have dedicated crew rooms at most of their bases so any extra costs that would be incurred would be small. Eastern don't have a line engineer at all their bases either and if they don't decide to base one in SOU then they will probably carry out frequent swaps with the LBA or the NCL based J41 whilst it is on the ground at SOU so that the aircraft can be rotated round the network for any engineering that will be needed. The only cost will be somewhere to store the catering supplies since the catering is done in house. The stores for the catering could be flown down from one of the other bases saving costs further! This may seem like it is a bit Mickey Mouse but that is why the airline is profitable and continues to be so. They won't have a problem finding crews for a SOU base since there will be a few flight deck that will happily move down since home or commitments are down south.

[Baseturn]

To comment on the passenger numbers quoted 2/3 I think the post is referring to the second sou rotation which is a new schedule and quite often loads are around 10-12, which is not bad.
Yes Eastern have a niche market catering for the business traveller, getting them to work before 9 and getting them home before tea time it is a convenience which the passenger has to pay for and I still see good passenger numbers even where flybe are competing. I agree the flybe Q400 is quite often 3/4 full but at the price I’m not surprised. The two airlines offer a completely different service, catering for a different market but I know that if I was running the show I would be happier knowing that I only had to fill 1/3 of my aircraft to break even than having to get staff out with a sandwich board to fill it!!!!. GOOD LUCK EASTERN
:ok:

[dwlpl]

The Dornier 328-100 that Eastern is going to use is D-CIRA from Cirrus (?).

[Jamesair]

The lease period for the a/c is from the 31st OCT - 19th DEC 2005

[Freebird17]

Does anyone know how things have been going since this route started?