Eastern Airways

[lbaspotter]

Here's the official announcement regarding Eastern Airways improving the flight times on its Leeds/Bradford services to Aberdeen and Southampton.

Source: http://www.easternairways.com/news/...es-new-timings-on-its-leeds-bradford-services

EASTERN AIRWAYS INTRODUCES NEW TIMINGS ON ITS LEEDS BRADFORD SERVICES

Business travellers and offshore workers will gain new early morning departures and convenient afternoon/early evening service timings as Eastern Airways introduces them on its year round services from Leeds Bradford International Airport to Southampton and Aberdeen.

Greater flexibility and further enhanced business-focused timings will be introduced from 6 October 2014 by the regional airline, which is Europe’s leading provider of fixed wing air services for the oil and gas industry.

Weekday flights to Southampton from Leeds Bradford will see new 6.40am, 10.35am and 5.15pm departures arriving in Hampshire at 7.25am, 11.45am and 6pm respectively. Services leave Southampton at 7.50am, 4.30pm and 6.30pm landing at Leeds Bradford at 8.35am, 5.45pm and 7.15pm respectively. Sunday services leave Leeds Bradford at 5.55pm and depart Southampton at 7.15pm.

Flights to Aberdeen on weekdays will depart Leeds Bradford at 7am, 8.55am and 6.05pm, arriving at 8.10am, 9.45am and 7.20pm. Services take off from Aberdeen at 8.45am, 4.10pm and 7.55pm arriving in Leeds Bradford at 10.05am, 4.55pm and 9.05pm respectively. Sunday flights depart from Leeds Bradford at 8,20pm and leave Aberdeen at 4.45pm.

Southampton is steeped in maritime history with a world class port for cruise liners and has strong business links with the north, particularly in the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, finance, insurance, manufacturing, engineering and construction industries. Aberdeen is Europe’s oil capital with the buoyant offshore industry.

Kay Ryan, Eastern Airways’ commercial director, said: “We constantly evaluate timings across our scheduled network to ensure we offer the best possible services, and after careful analysis, we’re introducing new timings to suit business travellers flying to Southampton and Aberdeen from Leeds Bradford.

“Customers heading to Southampton can now arrive on the south coast before 7.30am and be back in Yorkshire after a day’s business by 5.45pm, while offshore workers and oil industry executives now have a choice of two northbound weekday departures to Aberdeen leaving before 9am.”

Tony Hallwood, Leeds Bradford Airport’s aviation development director, commented: “Eastern Airways’ improved timings on both the Aberdeen and Southampton routes this Autumn will provide increased flexibility for business executives flying to both cities from Leeds Bradford.”

Lead-in fares now start from £79 one way, including taxes and charges.

Fast track security channels to avoid queues at security search at Leeds Bradford, Southampton and Aberdeen are available for all departing Eastern Airways scheduled passengers. Complimentary drinks and snacks are offered on board the aircraft and there is no charge for check-in, baggage or choice of seat.

Eastern Airways has been operating scheduled flights from Leeds Bradford for over 11 years and has two aircraft based at the airport with a team of 14 staff consisting of pilots and cabin crew to support its services.

A network of services across to 17 airports in the UK, Norway and France is operated by the airline on a fleet of 31 regional aircraft.

 

[lbaspotter]

The following picture's and video were posted on Southampton Airports Facebook page earlier this week. What with Eastern Airways launching its new Jet service to both Leeds/Bradford and Aberdeen it seems as that Southampton Airport welcomed the first Embraer operated service on Monday morning with a water cannon salute....

Source: https://www.facebook.com/SOU.Airport

Eastern Airways Embraer 135 welcome (3 photos)
Welcome to the Eastern Airways Embraer 135 which will be adding an extra 600 seats a month to Leeds and Aberdeen routes.

Take a look at this video of the aircraft being welcomed with a water arch salute
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1yU1FxhiMs[/video]

 

[Bigman]

Funnily enough I was going to ask how the loadings have progressed this week with the jungle jet taking over some rubber band flights.

 

[oldendays]

I don't like to be a suspicious Aloysius but was that footage actually filmed at LBA or somewhere else ? I don't recognise the area or the building behind the taxiing aircraft and the photograph of the crew appears to be at Southampton. Just wondering.

 

[lbaspotter]

Not been sarcastic. But If you read the post I actually said it was on Southampton Airports Facebook page not Leeds/Bradford's.

 

[oldendays]

That explains my recognition failure. Thankyou.

 

[lbaspotter]

I see Eastern Airways have today announced a new codeshare agreement with Wieroe. It opens up one stop services to Bergen and Stavanger from Leeds/Bradford via Aberdeen.

Source: http://www.easternairways.com/home/wideroe

 

[Bigman]

That is good news. I am guessing that changing at Aberdeen will be a pretty seemless task.

 

[lbaspotter]

Eastern Airways must be struggling to fill there 3x daily flights to both Aberdeen and Southampton from Leeds/Bradford up against the cheaper Flybe Dash 8 "flyshuttle" service option.

It also looks like the Embraer 135 jet experiment by Eastern hasn't worked because as from the start of the summer 2015 scheduled all flights seem to be listed as been operated by the BAe Jetstream 41 aircraft and both routes see a frequency reduction from been 3x daily to 2x daily.
One aircraft will remain Leeds based whilst another will be moved down south to be based at Southampton so to be able to offer the early northbound service still.

New timetable as from March 29th

Monday to Friday
EZE4713 = LBA 06:40 – SOU 07:50
EZE4718 = SOU 16:30 – LBA 17:45 / LBA 18:10 – ABZ 19:20
EZE4719 = ABZ 19:50 – LBA 21:00

EZE4701 = SOU 06:40 – LBA 07:50 / LBA 08:15 – ABZ 09:25
EZE4702 = ABZ 14:30 – LBA 15:40 / LBA 16:05 – SOU 17:15

Sundays
EZE4719 = ABZ 15:15 – LBA 16:25 / LBA 16:50 – SOU 18:05
EZE4718 = SOU 18:45 – LBA 19:55 / LBA 20:20 – ABZ 21:25

 

[White Heather]

I wish Eastern would be a little more adventurous from LBA and do something other than Aberdeen and Southampton! I am sure that they could make a go of Brussels, Oslo or Paris using their E135. All they ever seem to do is the same route, usually in competition with Flybe, and usually, losing in the end.

 

[lbaspotter]

I see Eastern Airways have now dropped there lowest (Saver fare) on the Leeds/Bradford - Southampton route to just £34 one-way whilst the Leeds -Aberdeen route lowest fare is now just £49 one-way. I wonder if they'll be making much profit whilst trying to fill up that 29 seater aircraft against the Flybe "flyshuttle" service.
Also for some unknown reason it looks like somebody at Eastern Airways has had a change of mind regarding the scheduled change going down to the 2x daily. Because there website booking page is now showing both routes continuing to operate 3x daily but all flights operated by BAe Jetstream 41 aircraft. Meaning LBA keeps it's 2x based aircraft and crews.

Revised Schedule

Monday to Thursdays
EZE4712 > LBA 07:00 - ABZ 08:10
EZE4701 > SOU 08:25 - LBA 09:35 > LBA 10:00 - ABZ 11:10
EZE4718 > SOU 16:30 - LBA 17:45 > LBA 18:10 - ABZ 19:20
EZE4719 > ABZ 19:55 - LBA 21:05

EZE4700 > LBA 06:40 - SOU 07:55
EZE4713 > ABZ 10:00 - LBA 11:10 > LBA 11:35 - SOU 12:45
EZE4706 > ABZ 16:00 - LBA 17:10 > LBA 17:35 - SOU 18:50
EZE4707 > SOU 19:20 - LBA 20:30

Fridays
EZE4701 > LBA 10:00 - ABZ 11:10
EZE4718 > SOU 16:30 - LBA 17:45 > LBA 18:10 - ABZ 17:20
EZE4719 > ABZ 19:55 - LBA 21:05

EZE4713 > LBA 11:35 - SOU 12:45
EZE4706 > ABZ 16:00 - LBA 17:10 > LBA 17:35 - SOU 18:50
EZE4707 > SOU 19:20 - LBA 20:30

Sundays
EZE4719 > ABZ 15:15 - LBA 16:25 > LBA 16:50 - SOU 18:05
EZE4718 > SOU 18:45 - LBA 19:55 > LBA 20:20 - ABZ 21:30

 

[lbaspotter]

Well I don't believe it, and to be honest with you I don't know if this is good news or not.

Eastern Airways schedules for the summer 2015 have change yet again but now they are showing that the Embrear 135 jet will be kept based at LBA. The based Embraer 135 will continue to operate the morning EZE70G/71Y & evening EZE76G/77Y LBA-SOU-LBA rotations along with the EZE71LK/76LK LBA-ABZ-LBA service in between as its been doing this winter.
Meanwhile the morning EZE21LK/31LK & evening EZE81LK/91LK LBA-ABZ-LBA rotations along with the EZE31Y/81G LBA-SOU-LBA rotation will remain been operated by the sole LBA based BAe Jetstream 41.

Also the recently introduced lower one-way "saver fare" flight prices structure (eg Aberdeen £39 and Southampton £34) now remains in place all summer. So it really does look as though Eastern Airways wants to carry on the battle fighting against flybe.com.

 

[Bigman]

Can't be good for punters all this chopping and changing. Still, they could always move to Leeds East Airport at some point if they wanted and corner the North Yorkshire market (OK only joking before anyone jumps on my back!!).

 

[rmac]

With the E 135 being LBA based I wonder if they would consider a Brussels service - I would have thought there would be a big enough demand to a make a E135 profitable.

 

[Seasider]

It looks like it has all changed again, I have just received an email to say that my flight tom ABZ on 6 May is operating 1 hour later and based on the timings is operated by Jetstream41. I think the change takes effect from 27 April.

 

[lbaspotter]

It looks like it has all changed again, I have just received an email to say that my flight tom ABZ on 6 May is operating 1 hour later and based on the timings is operated by Jetstream41. I think the change takes effect from 27 April.

At least they haven't cancelled you flight like flybe did "Seasider"! It just means you get to fly on the "rubber band" instead of the "Jungle jet".
Looking at the revised schedule it seems all weekday flights to Aberdeen and Southampton revert to been operated by 2x Leeds/Bradford based BAe Jetstream 41's as from when you mention April 27th. Both routes will remain operating 3x daily Monday-Thursday, 2x daily Friday plus the 1x Sunday rotation which is operated by the Aberdeen based Saab 2000.

Revised Schedule

Monday to Thursdays
Northbound
EZE4712 > LBA 07:00 - ABZ 08:10
EZE4701 > SOU 08:20 - LBA 09:30 > LBA 09:55 - ABZ 11:05
EZE4718 > SOU 16:30 - LBA 17:45 > LBA 18:10 - ABZ 19:25
EZE4707 > SOU 18:35 - LBA 19:45
Southbound
EZE4700 > LBA 06:40 - SOU 07:50
EZE4713 > ABZ 08:45 - LBA 10:05 > LBA 10:35 - SOU 11:45
EZE4706 > ABZ 15:30 - LBA 16:40 > LBA 17:05 - SOU 18:10
EZE4719 > ABZ 19:55 - LBA 21:05

Fridays
Northbound
EZE4701 > LBA 09:55 - ABZ 11:05
EZE4718 > SOU 16:30 - LBA 17:45 > LBA 18:10 - ABZ 19:25
EZE4707 > SOU 18:35 - LBA 19:45
Southbound
EZE4713 > LBA 10:35 - SOU 11:45
EZE4706 > ABZ 15:30 - LBA 16:40 > LBA 17:05 - SOU 18:10
EZE4719 > ABZ 19:55 - LBA 21:05

Sundays
Southbound
EZE4719 > ABZ 15:15 - LBA 16:25 > LBA 16:50 - SOU 18:05
Northbound
EZE4718 > SOU 18:45 - LBA 19:55 > LBA 20:20 - ABZ 21:30

PS: I hear that the 2x Embraer 135's G-CGMB & G-CGMC are heading of to pastures new on lease somewhere in Africa.

 

[Seasider]

I was looking forward to flying on a "jungle jet".

 

[Seasider]

I enjoyed my day in ABZ although it was 11.30am before I arrived there. The flights were OK, nice in flight service from the sole stewardess. There were 14 (incl 6 from SOU) on the northbound leg and 24 on the return. Smooth flying conditions except for the return into LBA which wasn't surprising due to the wind direction.
I would definitely fly with them again but doubt whether I would be able to afford the prices (£350 return, the day before).

 

[AirBingley]

Just spied on the very front of Eastern Airways website the following announcement (all with J41) and lots of £33 tickets available:

Fly Leeds Bradford to Southampton

- New mid-afternoon service to be introduced
- Up to 4 flights each weekday
- Greater flexibility

Eastern Airways is increasing services from three to four flights each weekday on its Leeds Bradford – Southampton route with the introduction on 14 September 2015 of a new 2.50pm departure from Leeds Bradford.

A new 12.15 departure from Southampton will also be available.

The new flights will complement the existing 6.40am, 10.35am and 5.05pm weekday services from Leeds Bradford and 8.20am, 4.30pm and 6.35pm flights from Southampton.

 

[Seasider]

I wonder if this is anything to do with the fact that Flybe don't have any flights (bookable) to SOU after the summer season.