@SeanM1997

3 UK domestic carriers - Aurigny, Blue Islands and Loganair have announced a new partnership to  widen their working relationship to offer seamless travel connections across their route networks; aim to coordinate their benefits for frequent flyers; and launch a new programme of co-operation to harness their collective buying power.   Existing partnerships between Blue Islands and Aurigny, and Loganair and Blue Islands, will be strengthened and a new partnership for connecting flights linking the networks of Loganair and Aurigny will be introduced. This will open-up a wide range of connections to and from Guernsey in particular, offering new connections to the north of England, Scotland and the Isle of Man at airports via including Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham where the airlines’ networks meet. Existing links between the Loganair and Blue Islands networks – centred on Southampton and Manchester today – will also be expanded. The map below shows the existing UK opera...

Following the loss of Ryanair in early 2021 and the travel restrictions imposed during the COVID-19, City of Derry Airport looked to be suffering. It had lost its two busiest routes (Edinburgh and Liverpool), with charter flights to Palma de Mallorca cancelled for the summer due to uncertainties in travel restrictions. This left the airport with just one airline (Loganair) and two routes - Glasgow and London Stansted for 2021. However, the airport has turned its fortunes around and have recently announced a series of new routes and increased frequencies, with Loganair today announcing a new City of Derry to Edinburgh route from May 2022. In March, Loganair announced a third route to Liverpool, with four weekly flights, increasing to seven weekly in late June and were further increased to nine weekly flights in peak summer. Whilst this was less seats than offered under Ryanair, it did involve more flights and were more attractive to those wanting to be flexible with their travel. Additi...

A process to contract year-round flights under a Public Service Obligation has relaunched by Cornwall Council. The new obligation is open for bids until 7 September 2021 to operate for year round flights for four years, commencing on 31 October 2021. Earlier in the year, the process to contract year round flights between Newquay and London was unsucessful and has meant the number of flights between Newquay and London has dropped from 28 weekly in 2019 to 8 weekly in 2021 (5 weekly from Heathrow with British Airways and 3 weekly from Gatwick with easyJet). Furthermore, the 8 weekly flights are only proposed to operate for summer 2021 and not for the winter process. Without a Public Service Obligation (PSO) in place, the Cornish airport may end up without a link to London this winter. Cornwall Airport Newquay has seen a number of new airlines and routes in Summer 2021 including BA CityFlyer, easyJet and Loganair launching domestic flights to the airport, allowing the airport to benefit f...

Loganair have announced  a new route from Aberdeen to Dublin with flights commencing 5 September 2021. Loganair have stepped in to the Aberdeen-Dublin route, following the collapse of Stobart Air (under the Aer Lingus Regional brand) earlier in the month (read more about that here: https://seanm1997.blogspot.com/2021/06/stobart-air-terminates-all-flights-what.html). Following the collapse of Stobart Air, many airlines had picked up routes in Belfast including Aer Lingus, British Airways CityFlyer and easyJet - with all nine Stobart Air destinations now served across Belfast. However, at Dublin, routes have not been picked up at the same speed - with many routes remaining unserved. This is most likely due to the ongoing travel restrictions between the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Loganair's Aberdeen to Dublin route will not face any direct competitors. Furthermore, it is noted that 48,613 passengers travelled between Aberdeen and Dublin in 2019 (the last full year pr...

8 June 2021 Between 23 July 2021 and 29 August 2021, Loganair will add an additional 1,152 seats on the Liverpool to City of Derry route by increasing the number of weekly flights from 7 to 9 in each direction during the summer school holidays. These flights will be operated on the ATR 42-500 aircraft, with 24 additional rotations during this time. Image 1: Shetland News Loganair launched the route on 24 May 2021, following the withdrawal of Ryanair from the route. In 2020, Liverpool was City of Derry's busiest route with 27,912 passengers, down 52% year on year. This fall in passengers is predominately due to COVID-19 restrictions with the UK population encouraged to stay local for much of 2020. As the percentage of the population who has been vaccinated is increasing nearly every day in the United Kingdom, along with a dramatic fall in COVID-19 cases since the turn of the year, demand for flying, especially domestically, is starting to rebound. With summer fast approaching, these...

Last week, I wrote an article about Belfast City since the collapse of Flybe:  Has Flybe's collapse allowed Belfast City to prosper? (seanm1997.blogspot.com) .  This time, I am looking at Southampton. On 5 March 2020, Flybe ceased operations, leading to many routes across the United Kingdom being cut. At Southampton, Flybe had 94% of total seats and 91% of movements with a total of 631,192 scheduled departure seats. Southampton was forecast to be Flybe's second largest airport in terms of departures and fourth largest cities in terms of seats. The loss for Southampton was probably the greatest of all airports that Flybe served, yet this loss gave Southampton an opportunity to be less reliant on one carrier and to spread its operations across many. First came Loganair - adding flights from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle followed by Eastern Airways announcing flights to Manchester, Belfast City and Dublin. Blue Islands then announced a new base in Southampton, with flights to ...

During the 2000s, many airports introduced an Airport Development Fee yet these have gradually been removed - Newquay removed theirs in 2006 and Teesside will abolish their Development Fee from today (1 July 2021). Yet one airport has maintained their Development Fee - Norwich. An Airport Development Fee (ADF) is to help fund further development of the airport's infrastructure and passenger facilities and to maintain and develop the airport's route network. Norwich introduced the fee in 2007 and is currently charged at £10 for adults. Norwich Airport states the airport has helped to increase holiday destinations and retain scheduled services at the airport and fund the refurbishment and extension of the airport's terminal. However, the airport is one of the few remaining airports in the United Kingdom to maintain an ADF. So, should Norwich remove their fee? There are two noticeable examples of airports removing their fees - Newquay and Teesside. Newquay removed their ADF in...

On 5 March 2020, Flybe ceased operations, leading to many routes across the United Kingdom being cut. At Belfast City, Flybe had 70.3% of total seats and 80.3% of movements with a total of 679,927 scheduled departure seats. However, this gave Belfast City an opportunity - to be less reliant on one carrier and to spread its operations across many. First came Loganair - adding flights from Aberdeen and Inverness followed by Eastern Airways launching Southampton flights. In July 2020, BA CityFlyer announced a London City route from September 2020 before Stobart Air added 6 routes from Belfast City under the Aer Lingus Regional brand - Birmingham, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds/Bradford and Manchester. This led to the first base at Belfast City following the collapse of Flybe - albeit at reduced frequencies. Finally in 2020, Loganair announced a new route from Dundee, the first route which was not previously served by Flybe. Yet it was in 2021 when Belfast City really f ound their...