The Flightline 146 has just this minute flown past my window, and seems to be going out to DUS this evening.

Anyone know if this is a permenant move from MAN, or just for the weekend?

The whole basis of the Eastern operation is that it is not competing against anything other than a slow and expensive train network. Its use of the Jetstream is perfect for the routes that it serves, but if FlyBe come along, with nearly half the seat mile costs, they can afford to reduce the price, and can usually afford to match the frequency to some level as well.

I’m sure there are one or two more, but the main routes they do compete on are those in which they still retain a significant frequency advantage, such as SOU-LBA, and SOU-NCL/ABZ. Once one or both of their Unique Selling Points (Route, and Frequency) are duplicated by another operator (currently mainly FlyBe doing most of that) then Eastern dont really have much choice but to pull out, as they have little chance of competing.

Their future can only be secured by ensuring that they remain on the routes that best fit their business model, and that essentially means niche routes with little or no competition. Which is what they appear to be doing 😉

Just had a look through the ACARS logs and the turnaround in EWR really doesnt seem that arduous. Heres a list of the flights the aircraft that operates the EWR-BFS has operated during the day before it leaves for Belfast:

31st OSL-EWR
30th IAH-EWR
29th CLE-EWR
28th AMS-EWR-PBI-EWR
27th CLE-EWR
26th EDI-EWR
25th CDG-EWR
24th No flight

So it basically seems to alternate daily between a domestic central destination and a European destination.

TAHS Airlines to Europe has been by book for the last 4 editions now, and handles UK and European stuff perfectly. I only use it for reference purposes now really, instead marking in the few interesting things I see in a database. However despite that fact it served me very well in the few years that I logged religiously, and still has a purpose now I dont 🙂

Ahh the infamous circle to land approach at Split. Nice to see a pilots perspective of this.

I think this guy is a pilot for Golden Air looking at his other shots, and I seem to recall there being a lot of swapping around of Eastern Saabs around the time this photo was taken, so I think its probably operating for Golden Air rather than doing an Eastern charter.

Although having said that Eastern Airways do a LOT of charter work, so it is still a very plausable option 🙂

What’ the point of Jet2 painting LSAB in Menorca colours, when they are not going to operate it on this route? Doesn’t make a great deal of commercial sense to me!!!

Its not supposed to make commercial sense, but it actualy does. Why would you advertise a destination on the side of a plane taking passengers to that destination? They already know you fly there, because they are going there now! It would make commercial sense to advertise a different destination to make people more aware of your wider route network. 😉

Flytecomm does show charter flights, but the airline are not in the drop down list.

To use Flytecomm for the UK you really need to insert an airport ICAO code in the Arrival Airport box (The Departure Airport box does NOT work on its own). So for example, EGCC for Mancheser, EGLL for Heathrow.

Alternatively if you know the aircraft ICAO callsign, say MYT74, then you can enter that into the Flightnumber section.