Eastern Airways

[Bigman]

Typical this. How do we get from Eastern announcing an MME – LHR service to a full-on political debate about regional mayors?

Middlesbrough has no direct trains to Kings Cross, and Darlington has a twice hourly service. Leeds, Wakefield and York have a far better spread of services between them, and of course Bradford, Harrogate and Skipton also have direct services.

Further distance away from the capital than West Yorkshire may make MME a better proposition than LBA. Plus, it’s not as if you are trying to fill an A319.

Time will tell if a 3 x daily jungle jet will work or not.

 

[Ashwo99]

Perhaps if LBA-NQY is successful with T3, which it should be given that the loads were decent when BE operated the route if I remember correctly, they might also consider other routes out of LBA. LHR could be one of them, if MME-LHR works out they may also expand there, with the further E-Jet deliveries pending T3 could be making a play for more of the domestic market. If successful it could be good news for LBA, being a T3 base for a long time we might see some more route development from them.

 

[lbaspotter]

Typical this. How do we get from Eastern announcing an MME – LHR service to a full-on political debate about regional mayors?

Middlesbrough has no direct trains to Kings Cross, and Darlington has a twice hourly service. Leeds, Wakefield and York have a far better spread of services between them, and of course Bradford, Harrogate and Skipton also have direct services.

Further distance away from the capital than West Yorkshire may make MME a better proposition than LBA. Plus, it’s not as if you are trying to fill an A319.

Time will tell if a 3 x daily jungle jet will work or not.

Well I really do hope the Tees Valley Mayor has a big cheque book!

The London flights will be up against it though with the LNER train times from Durham been only 3 hours 6 min journey to Kings Cross with multiple hourly departures. Also starting next year Middlesbrough will be connected to King Cross by LNER. Not sure how many trains a day that will be.

As proven by British Airways at Leeds a 3x daily service to Heathrow on its own won't work without connections/codeshare...

 

[LBAYORKIE]

I think BA proved LBA to LHR doesnt work even with onward connections. If BA cant/wont make the route work no one can.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Agreed but there no way any other airline even with good timings would generate the required support unless they could provide through ticketing.

 

[Dave 1959]

Eastern will be serving both LHR and LCY from MME from 6 July.

LCY will be one rotation M-F from 6 July, rising to 2 rotations M-F from 14 July. Served by a Saab 2000.

LHR will be one rotation from 6 July, rising to 3 rotations a day from 13 July. Served by a E170.

Good for MME, and they must have done something right to attract Eastern to open these routes.

Are you sure they are serving Heathrow, I can't find any mention on their website only the London City flights?

 

[Jerry]

Are you sure they are serving Heathrow, I can't find any mention on their website only the London City flights?

They've applied for slots to serve Heathrow.

 

[KARFA]

Are you sure they are serving Heathrow, I can't find any mention on their website only the London City flights?

Yes. They are on the LHR site already. Subject to a lot approval - but if these are from the BA/BMI remedy slot pool it’s unlikely the slot application would be rejected.

 

[Jobsagoodun]

Unlikely to be BA remedy slots as there is a very specific timetable for any such application and this needs to take place long before the season commences. More likely that an existing LHR slot holder needs someone to babysit slots for them whilst demand from COVID recovers. I‘d suggest that this is a time limited exercise by Eastern, much like the Flybe IOM or GCI services were.

 

[LBA4EVER]

Also remember Eastern Airways are also due to take delivery of 1x further Embraer 175 and 3x larger Embraer 190s which may allow them to open a Leeds - London route sometime.

Now or in the near future now BA have pulled out of Leeds.

 

[LBA4EVER]

I think BA proved LBA to LHR doesnt work even with onward connections. If BA cant/wont make the route work no one can.

Did not work for BA? It ran for 7 and a half years twice a day on an A319!

 

[White Heather]

According to LBA the BA route is suspended, not permanently canned and they hope it will be back in the future.
There again that is what was said when PIA dropped the Islamabad route & we are still waiting!

 

[KARFA]

Unlikely to be BA remedy slots as there is a very specific timetable for any such application and this needs to take place long before the season commences. More likely that an existing LHR slot holder needs someone to babysit slots for them whilst demand from COVID recovers. I‘d suggest that this is a time limited exercise by Eastern, much like the Flybe IOM or GCI services were.

I don’t see any need for babysitting slots. The 80/20 rule is suspended and unlikely to come back until 2021.

 

[Jobsagoodun]

I don’t see any need for babysitting slots. The 80/20 rule is suspended and unlikely to come back until 2021.

I don’t disagree entirely however the slot alleviation is only in place until the end of October at this point. I can imagine an operator with a large number of slots being interested in securing a home now, especially if they don’t see a full recovery from COVID for maybe 18/24mths.

 

[Finger66]

MME-LHR is a very strange move to me by T3. The incentives provided must be huge and therefore affording them minimal risk. They must have some interline and through ticketing agreements in place, or at least be confident they will be. With VS is one that immediately springs to mind. BA never made LHR work from LBA because the timings were all wrong and were clearly not interested in improving them. If T3 have an early southbound and teatime and evening northbound from/to MME then that's a huge improvement on what BA offered from LBA. Be interesting to see if that new route has an effect on KLM ops at MME with regards to connections. Let's hope all this T3 expansion incentivise a gap in the market for LBA. One thing I suspect is LM won't allow T3 to get too big at MME as there is a potential impact on their NCL ops. Could be some interesting times ahead again as we see demand return.

 

[KARFA]

I think BA proved LBA to LHR doesnt work even with onward connections. If BA cant/wont make the route work no one can.

To some extent it proved the complete opposite. Of all the domestic BA routes, LBA had the highest percentage of connecting customers.

The issue were more to do with timings and frequency to some extent in the last 2 years. Also BA never really pushed LBA and competed with KLM to take customers off them. Also many from this side of the country were still used to going to MAN, and maybe were not even aware that they could fly from LBA.

 

[lbaspotter]

Eastern Airways have NOT been granted the 38x weekly slots they applied for at Heathrow along with the following airlines that applied.

ACL has published its initial slot report for Heathrow for the winter season.

Airlines that requested new slots and did not get any include:

Alitalia Cityliner (98)
Arkia (6)
Aurigny Air Services (56)
Brussels Airlines (40)
China Airlines (10)
CZA Czech Airlines (14)
DHL Air (12)
Eastern Airways (38)
Luxair (26)
Regional Jet OU (22)
Rwandair (6)
Spicejet (42)
Ukraine International (28)
Vistara (14)
WestJet (56)
Wideroe (56)

 

[Starflyer]

That's for the winter season. They are holding slots at LHR for this summer, but those are presumably someone else's slots who simply isn't operating at this time and they won't earn grandfather rights to them - which is where the value comes

 

[White Heather]

Eastern Airways to restart Leeds/Bradford - Southampton route from Monday, June 29th. Flights will only operate once daily MON-FRI

See press release for full details. https://www.easternairways.com/announcements/coronavirus-information

Has this changed? Nothing is showing on the LBA arrivals or departures for today, tomorrow or even Wednesday with the next arrivals/departures being shows as two Ryanairs on Wednesday (Dublin and Wroclaw).

 

[lbaspotter]

Has this changed? Nothing is showing on the LBA arrivals or departures.

Not sure what's happening. They are not showing on Southampton Airport arrivals & departure boards either.
Just checked there website and flight no longer bookable for this week, with first flight available from next Monday, July 6th.

I'm taking a guess to say that this week's flights have being cancelled due to low numbers, anyone whom booked most likely will have been transfered onto the Manchester route.