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Good news as Loganair, Eastern and Blue Islands pick up many Flybe routes

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There are three pieces of good news today for ex-Flybe customers.

Loganair to start flights on 16 ex-Flybe routes

Scottish airline Loganair has announced that it will pick up 16 Flybe routes.  The routes will be phased in over the next three months although the bulk will be up and running from next week.

All flights will operate from existing Loganair bases at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Newcastle.

Here are the routes Loganair is launching:

  • Aberdeen – Belfast City, Birmingham, Jersey, Manchester
  • Belfast City – Aberdeen, Inverness
  • Cardiff – Edinburgh
  • Edinburgh – Exeter, Manchester, Newquay, Southampton, Cardiff
  • Exeter – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle
  • Glasgow – Exeter, Southampton
  • Inverness – Belfast City, Birmingham, Jersey
  • Jersey – Aberdeen, Inverness
  • Newcastle – Exeter, Southampton
  • Manchester – Aberdeen, Edinburgh
  • Southampton – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle

It isn’t clear where Loganair is sourcing the aircraft to operate these routes, unless it is picking up some Flybe aircraft and crew.  If it isn’t, we may see some quick pruning of some second-tier existing Loganair routes.

Here is a review of my Loganair flight from Glasgow to Barra, landing on the beach!, last year.

Here is our review of the Clan Loganair loyalty programme.

British Airways codeshares with Loganair on some routes, so it is possible that some of these routes which could connect to mainline BA flights will eventually be bookable on ba.com too.

You can find out more on the Loganair website here.

Blue Islands to pick up Flybe Channel Islands services

One of the unfortunate casualties of the Flybe collapse is its franchisors Eastern Airways and Blue Islands.  Both of these airlines let Flybe sell seats on their behalf and flew in aircraft with Flybe livery (see image below).

Blue Islands, which operates from the Channel Islands, has been particularly badly hit because it has no booking engine of its own.  It is able to carry on flying but cannot sell tickets at the moment.

Blue Islands will honour all tickets issued by Flybe.  The airline has its own licence so is able to continue flyings its fleet of six ATR turboprops.

The following routes will continue, now branded as Blue Islands and not Flybe:

Jersey to London City, Southampton, Bristol, Exeter, East Midlands, Guernsey

Guernsey to Exeter, Southampton, Newquay

The airline has also offered to pick up the Newquay to Heathrow (soon to be Gatwick) route, which operates under public subsidy, and Exeter to Jersey and Guernsey.

Eastern Airways continues to operate and adds 3 routes

Eastern Airways is also very keen to stress that its Flybe-branded franchise flights ARE still operating.  It is only guaranteeing the current timetable until Sunday, however.

It is also taking over three Flybe routes – Aberdeen to Birmingham, Southampton to Manchester and Southampton to Newcastle.

An announcement will follow next week about future services.  As with Blue Islands, there is currently no way of booking an Eastern Airways flight online.  It is likely that Eastern has not been paid for tickets purchased via Flybe recently.

Eastern Airways currently flies or has announced the following routes.  This includes the three new routes above:

  • Teesside – Aberdeen, London City, Southampton, Cardiff, Dublin, Isle of Man, Belfast City
  • Aberdeen – Newcastle, Humberside, Wick, Birmingham
  • Anglesey – Cardiff
  • Belfast City – Teesside
  • Birmingham – Aberdeen
  • Cardiff – Anglesey, Teesside
  • Dublin – Teesside
  • Humberside – Aberdeen
  • Isle of Man – Teesside
  • Leeds Bradford – Southampton
  • London City – Teesside
  • Manchester – Southampton
  • Newcastle – Aberdeen, Southampton
  • Southampton – Leeds Bradford, Teesside, Manchester, Newcastle
  • Wick – Aberdeen

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Comments (43)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Paul Anderson says:
    5 Mar5 March 14:09

    I wonder if Eastern and Blue Islands could quickly set something up with Expedia to sell tickets? Just like what Hahn Air Lines does, that you reviewed a few days ago.

    • planeconcorde says:
      5 Mar5 March 16:02

      Blue Islands were using a bought in booking engine from somebody else, before they became a Flybe-branded franchise. http://www.blueislands.com states “…until such time as Blue Islands have re-established full functionality of its dormant dynamic booking tools, which is expected within the forthcoming days (at which point further announcements will be made).” So they are already on the case.

      The article states “It is able to carry on flying but cannot sell tickets at the moment.” Whereas http://www.blueislands.com states “… It will be possible to book any available seats on Blue Islands operated services at the airport. Those seeking to book travel are asked to attend the airport and enquire of availability and flight information there…”

      Granted, you have to go to the airport in the hope they have space and can’t make a reservation for a future date.

      • pauldb says:
        6 Mar6 March 08:31

        The tax exiles are not going to fancy getting stuck in the UK.

  • daft says:
    5 Mar5 March 14:48

    good news? loganair?

    oh boy….

    • Axel says:
      5 Mar5 March 19:59

      Complimentary Tunnocks bars! From EDI!
      Could be a game changer for me.

      • Shoestring says:
        5 Mar5 March 20:03

        watch out for the Scotch who will probably drink a whole bottle of whisky then pretend they’re sober despite falling over twice & talking about Wittgenstein

    • jamie says:
      6 Mar6 March 08:37

      Yes, really public spirited of Loganair – my £69 ABZ-Birmingham Flybe booking has gone to £216 with Loganair, probably on one of their 6 seater aircraft

      • Rob says:
        6 Mar6 March 08:56

        I was intrigued by the £50 PLUS taxes and charges BA rescue fares. Last time I booked to Manchester the base fare was £2! Looks like stranded Flybe passengers will be paying more than normal BA passengers 🙂

      • Billy says:
        6 Mar6 March 10:17

        You may have missed that the airline selling the £69 ticket has gone bankrupt. So you just want another airline to continue doing what Flybe did ?

        • jamie says:
          6 Mar6 March 12:42

          Clearly not but there is an issue of competition here (or lack of) which will not benefit consumers.

          SOme short terms profiteering for sure – Loganair site already showing these flights

  • pauldb says:
    5 Mar5 March 14:49

    I doubt Blue Islands are that upset. As far as I remember they joined up with Flybe because they weren’t doing too well competing with them. Now they look like they could free run at some extra routes as well.

  • john says:
    5 Mar5 March 15:06

    Maybe the regions will be somewhere BA can start using the LHR slots it isn’t using due to culling flights to coronavirus hit places..

    • marcw says:
      5 Mar5 March 15:35

      Lol. FlyBe flights were not full either.

      • john says:
        5 Mar5 March 15:37

        I think the value of the slots for later long haul use is probably more important than the routes making a profit

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:
        5 Mar5 March 17:21

        Flybe didn’t have connecting traffic. BA does. No MAN-LGW to feed BA holiday traffic has always seems an obvious hole to me, but than I am based near MAN.

        I don’t see BA picking up Region-Region flights anytime soon, and by soon, I mean ever.

        • Stu N says:
          5 Mar5 March 17:45

          In theory FlyBe had connecting traffic, they code-shared for Ethiad, Singapore and Virgin on EDI-LHR and Ethiad and Air India on EDI-BHX. Whether this translated into actual passengers is less than obvious – you’d be pretty disappointed to come off business class long-haul and onto a Dash-8 I expect.

          I think the sun will explode before BA fly any meaningful UK domestic point-to-point network (unless one of those points is LHR,LCY or LGW).

          • Shoestring says:
            5 Mar5 March 17:56

            it’s why I have a half hope BA might be interested in the Newquay-LHR route (upping the frequency & year-round)

            because it’s a subsidised route – if they win that
            because it feeds into LHR LH
            because whilst Cornwall is a deprived area, the people who holiday there and have second homes there are often richer & London-based

          • Mikeact says:
            6 Mar6 March 01:35

            But just how many ‘regulars ‘ fly that route….minimal I would imagine. Tourists may or may not be different, but as it’s subsidised seems to me there’s your answer… no money in it.

  • the_real_a says:
    5 Mar5 March 17:20

    If you have a Flybe Branded Credit Card

    If you hold a Flybe branded credit card issued by us, please be assured that your card will continue to work as normal.

    Phew!!

    • Mikeact says:
      6 Mar6 March 05:02

      Why on earth would you have one of those things ?

      • NigelthePensioner says:
        6 Mar6 March 07:31

        Only because by flashing it at security at a Flybe airport you hot through fast track! However its issued by Creation…..and theres a whole new experience in financial incompetence. Creation is a great name for them!

  • Andrew says:
    5 Mar5 March 18:02

    So Easyjet are picking up the EDI-BHX-GLA routes. But no interest in Aberdeen or Edinburgh to LHR?

    BMI was effective competition on those routes for years, but noone else seems to be able to manage it. This is now the second time that Virgin have failed to crack the Scotland-Heathrow market. I appreciate that EDI is now better connected than ever, but outside the summer peak, it would be handy to have a non-BA airline willing to connect with Star Alliance or VS flights on the domestics.

    • Shoestring says:
      5 Mar5 March 18:12

      how can EasyJet get slots into LHR?

      • Rob says:
        5 Mar5 March 20:51

        There are slots held back for any domestic operator who wants to fly those routes from Heathrow, a throw back to when BMI was taken over.

  • Yorkieflyer says:
    5 Mar5 March 18:48

    Eastern Airways also launching seasonal Teeside – Alicante

    • tony says:
      5 Mar5 March 21:29

      The worrying thing here is this is exactly the sort of stunt that seemed to lead FlyBe awry…

      • Yorkieflyer says:
        5 Mar5 March 22:42

        That’s true, not sure a Embraer 170 is economic on a leisure route against loco fares

  • Graeme says:
    5 Mar5 March 19:11

    Loganair has been sending out cancellation e-mails for some of the remaining ABZ-SEN flights in the last week (the route is being cancelled entirely next month). I expect this is related to the Flybe news.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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