Archive Eastern Airways at Cardiff Airport

[TheLocalYokel]

Maybe a LBA rotation between the PSO schedules instead of a third NCL?

 

[CraigW92]

Taken from Swag: interesting ...

Due in c18:40 from EKYT/Aalborg is NFA932P "North Flying 932P" Metro OY-NPE ..for the Valley sched (will be Eastern Flt Nos T3610/T3611 & T3612/T3613, no change to flight times)

 

[Jerry]

Taken from Swag: interesting ...

Due in c18:40 from EKYT/Aalborg is NFA932P "North Flying 932P" Metro OY-NPE ..for the Valley sched (will be Eastern Flt Nos T3610/T3611 & T3612/T3613, no change to flight times)

So either North Flying are covering for Eastern on a temporary basis until they can assign there own aircraft or they have it permanently with Eastern just being the ticket agent. Hopefully it's the former!

 

[Jerry]

According to MME departure board there is a J41 due to depart to CWL at 06.00. Yet according to SWAG North Flying arrived at 18.30. Will be interesting to see which aircraft does operate the flight.

 

[superking]

don't we all love a mystery. it does sound strange thou that eastern sending in a j41 from Doncaster.all will become clear.

 

[Tinkerman]

The sound of the J41 going overhead was the thing that woke me up this morning ... G-MAJG en-route to VLY.

Assuming that North Flying positioned in their OY-NPE because perhaps they hadn't had notification from Van Air or Citywing due to it being the weekend ? Nevermind, the route looks like it's Easterns for the taking !

 

[Jerry]

Fingers crossed we'll get another route or an extra NCL rotation from them.

 

[Jerry]

Just had a look at prices for the VLY route and for the first time (I've seen) the prices have come up on Skyscanner. The CityWing flights never came up on there.
Lowest price I've seen is £41 and highest I've seen is £66. I just did some random dates.

 

[Tinkerman]

Seems good pricing to me !

 

[Jerry]

Just had a look at the other routes they've taken over from CityWing and they are priced between 125 and 150 return. So cheaper than the usual Eastern prices.

 

[Jerry]

The latest yearly figures are out for the VLY route. It took 9862 passengers in 2016-17 which had a small drop 128 on the year before but only half the seats on sale were sold.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39526596
I'm wondering if they need to advertise this more to people from South Wales as a holiday route to North Wales. Tour Snowdonia, the Llyn peninsula and see the sights of Caernarfon Castle and more. Flights on the weekend might help.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Is Anglesey Airport open at weekends? I was under the impression that it isn't. If it is open seven days a week then operating at weekends would add even more to the subsidy as there would be more flights to subsidise.

I think the CWL PSO service is the only scheduled route into Anglesey Airport.

 

[Jerry]

Is Anglesey Airport open at weekends? I was under the impression that it isn't. If it is open seven days a week then operating at weekends would add even more to the subsidy as there would be more flights to subsidise.

I think the CWL PSO service is the only scheduled route into Anglesey Airport.

I honestly don't know. Something needs to be done with it to give it a boost. I have heard the Ken Skates the WG Cabinet Secretary is reviewing the route again so whether it will survive this time? There is lots of opposition to it as many do consider it a waste of money and just a charter for politicians especially on another more welsh focused forum! (Irony is many of those same people don't see a problem with the poor loads on the LCY service). But for some people it does turn a 2 day journey into one that can be done in a day as the train journey and road journey are quite long. Personally i think for it to work it needs a carrier that doesn't go bust and some marketing to make people more aware of it and that it can be used to holiday in N.Wales.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

VLY isn't open on weekends and I don't thinks there's enough demand for weekend leisure passengers. Now that Eastern are on the route it may provide a welcome boost. I would hope Eastern would be more well known in the business community than previous carriers.
The route was originally nicknamed Ieaun Air. It would be interesting to here the breakdown of stats of how many politicians, general business and leisure passengers use the route. Despite the usual posters on other forums opinions, I think this route is somewhat different to the LCY route. There are few other options to North Wales, and I think some view it as what use is it travelling to North Wales, when in fact it is probably much more beneficial to businesses in North Wales to travel South.

 

[Jerry]

Eastern stats March 2017
Anglesey 970 (though they didn't do the route for the whole month) +27% on March 2016
Aberdeen 736 +7% on March 2016
Newcastle 1382 +16% on March 2016

 

[Jerry]

Eastern Airways arrival from Anglesey reported a drone nearby to Air Traffic control while on approach around 18.00 today. The flight wasn't diverted and landed without incident.
Wish these drone idiots would stop flying near airports!
www.aviationwales.com/plane-encounter-drone-approach-cardiff-airport/

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I agree one hundred per cent.

 

[superking]

licence them,make them do a ppi licence. They had a problem at Gatwick a few days back and aircraft diverted and some in the hold till sorted.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Licensing of drone users in some way, provided it includes a test of competency and basic aviation law, seems so obvious but getting parliamentary time to push through such legislation could be a problem unless powers already exist for the relevant minister to make an Order.

 

[Jerry]

Just heard on Capital radio that the Welsh government has extended the Anglesey flights for another 4 year's. Hopefully with Eastern operating it the service can get some stability now.