Archive Eastern Airways at Cardiff Airport

[Jerry]

Considering Wales is now one of the most infected countries in the world I'd expect that they've spoken to the airport and WG and expect that Wales will be in tier 4 lockdown for January and most of February. I doubt that they'll be the only airline to push resumption dates back to March.

 

[Jerry]

It looks like Eastern may well be being pushed out of Teesside with Belfast City ending and Loganair looking to operate Heathrow. This could mean Eastern having spare aircraft they could base elsewhere. An opportunity for Cardiff maybe?

 

[Finger66]

And I think that leaves T3 with huge opportunities at both CWL and LBA, including linking the two together

 

[superking]

Sounds good to base eastern aircraft at CWL to do what ever routes they please. I read some where last year that Eastern were going to get rid of a few aircraft as a few getting a bit long in the tooth now. It was said at the time some ATR42 was being looked at for replacements.

 

[Jerry]

There was rumours that they were going to get more ATR 72s.
It'll be curious in how they'll replace the J41s especially on the Anglesey route. Would a ATR 42 be too big for that especially if it was limited to 19 seats. Or would they have to find a specific aircraft for it. I wonder if WG could go down the Scottish government route and buy an aircraft specifically for the route and get Eastern to operate it.

 

[Seasider]

It would depend on how important the route is to them.

 

[Finger66]

I think the route is pretty important to the WG and regional connectivity. Certainly no point in op an ATR when only 19 seats per leg can be sold, unless any PSO subsidy helps with op costs and think T3 would have to then be given permission to op the same a/c on other routes for themselves to increase utilisation. It’s all quite political! T3 should wake up and smell the coffee and take on routes that have no competition and a good catchment area. I say again CWL and LBA are two, including linking them together. A twice daily CWL - LBA - ABZ would work a treat on an ATR and basically utilise an a/c for the day. Going back to VLY, they may get a bit more life out of some of the J41s just yet so poss ok for now ahead of a full travel recovery. Come on T3 you know it all makes sense.............

 

[KARFA]

In terms of setting up routes without competition I think that's what they tried to do at MME, and LM has come in to ruin that (which helps neither airline in my opinion).

Was it SOU-LBA-ABZ that Eastern used to do? I assume that stopped as it didn't make money?

 

[Finger66]

Yes the based LBA units combined SOU and ABZ. But don’t think unreliability helped with ABZ. By basing in CWL all legs can have combined pax. The based LBA units relied on just LBA pax for the first departure and last inbound. The ATRs should be more reliable than the J41 and have better pax appeal. And at only 2 x daily means frequency and capacity appealing enough without being stupid. But I think it’s all wishful thinking on my part and probably won’t happen. As for LM not sure they are interested in basing much further south than MME/NCL and certainly don’t seem interested in LBA. And if T3 need to do something with their a/c then they could do worse than link LBA and ABZ with a CWL based unit.

 

[Jerry]

The WG do consider the Ynys Mon link as important due to the poor transport infrastructure between north and south. I suppose it'll all depend on how long the J41s will last, i believe most of them are around 30 years old now. I suppose the problem for the WG would be that eventually a government is going to come along and improve the overland routes so actually owning the aircraft for a route that might end if that investment happened could be kind of counter productive.

 

[superking]

Talk on dried plum that eastern are walking away from MME. there was going to be 3 aircraft based at MME. I wonder if CWL has a chance of getting these aircraft based to take on the missing routes plus other routes as well if this covid 19 allows.

 

[geoff]

CWL is one of the only airports left, where they would face no opposition on any of the routes.

 

[Jerry]

It kind of feels like they are being pushed south by loganair. Hopefully this will mean that they concentrate on the likes of Cardiff and Southampton and look at airports like Exeter and Newquay.

 

[Seasider]

Loganair want to be the sole airline to English regions from the whole of Scotland. Just my view.

 

[Jerry]

Belfast City has been put back until 17th May and Anglesey until 1st June

https://twitter.com/x/status/1364562078703493128

 

[Jerry]

Eastern Airways has put back the launch of the Cardiff to Belfast route to Monday 24th May, route is down as 6 weekly with no Saturday flight.
Anglesey won't resume until Mon 6th September, route is down as 10 weekly Monday to Friday.

 

[Jerry]

Looking at Eastern Airways and it looks like Belfast City is now due to start on 28th May and is 3 or 4 weekly through June Monday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday but at the moment there is only a inbound from Belfast onsale on Thursdays.
From July it goes to 6 weekly with no flights on Saturdays.
Anglesey is still down to resume on 6th September.

 

[fly4gigs]

How will they compete with Aer Lingus? It's like double the price.

 

[Jerry]

How will they compete with Aer Lingus? It's like double the price.

Yes the prices are steep! They may hope they can pick up customers on the days Aer Lingus isn't flying but i'd hope eventually Aer Lingus will go at least 6 weekly. Also will they actually start the route before September? As they are essentially having crew based at Cardiff or have to fly an aircraft in for a limited flight schedule. I'd be very surprised if we see Eastern actually operate Belfast, hopefully the airport can persuade them to change to Glasgow or Newcastle.

 

[Jerry]

Suggests they aren't going to be dropping the route.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1394972549847650304