Eastern Airways - Suspension of operations

[pitdiver]

On our local news this evening there was a report regarding Eastern Airways
. They have suspended all flights and have ten days to come up with a rescue plan or they face going into administration. Apparently there is a flight in Aberdeen who's passengers and crew have been offered free train tickets to get them home.

Airline Eastern Airways has suspended operations, according to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The regional airline, which operated flights from six UK airports, has cancelled all its flights, and passengers who had booked with Eastern have been told not to travel to airports.

A CAA statement read: "Eastern Airways, which operated regional services from airports across the United Kingdom, has suspended operations.

"All Eastern Airways operated flights are now cancelled. Therefore, please do not go to the airport as flights will not be operating.

"Eastern Airways customers are therefore urged to make their own alternative travel arrangements via other airlines, rail or coach operators."

Eastern Airways operated scheduled flights from London Gatwick, Humberside, Teesside International, Aberdeen, Wick and Newquay airports.

UK regional airline Eastern Airways 'suspends operations'

UK regional airline Eastern Airways, used by Premier League football clubs to fly teams to games, has cancelled all its flights.

news.sky.com

 

[pug1]

On our local news this evening there was a report regarding Eastern Airways
. They have suspended all flights and have ten days to come up with a rescue plan or they face going into administration. Apparently the is a flight in Aberdeen who's passengers and crew have been offered free train tickets to get them home.

Very, very sad. People will say that it was down to mismanagement or that they’ve had it coming for years. It’s actually because they took on the KLM Cityhopper contract and were unceremoniously dropped from it with very little notice after having invested significantly in the aircraft and crew. Not only this but the U.K. regional U.K. air market is almost non-existent.

Outside hope that someone will swoop in and save the Jetstream ops as there’s still a small niche to be served HUY-ABZ, but it’s very limited in scope now.

 

[Titfield]

A number of uk domestic airlines who operate small aircraft (because of the size of demand on the routes they operate) are struggling. The States of Guernsey owned Aurigny has received a lot of cash to keep it going.

The costs they incur seem to have risen far more than their ability to raise fares.

 

[ainsworth74]

It’s actually because they took on the KLM Cityhopper contract and were unceremoniously dropped from it with very little notice after having invested significantly in the aircraft and crew.

Wow how recently did that happen? I think it was only two weeks ago an Eastern Airways Embraer flew over me on final approach to Teesside on a KLM flight from Amsterdam.

 

[Struner]

Not surprised really…

Here’s Steve Marsh account of three years ago:

We were super-excited to learn of the return to service of Eastern Airways between Aberdeen and Wick in Caithness, Scotland. So excited that we splashed £200 for a couple of return flights in their first week back since 2019. Surely this will be a friendly wee airline, right? Well that's not what we experienced on both the outbound and return legs. Watch on to see why we'll never fly this airline again. Like EVER.

& Shetlanders told me they would only fly them out of necessity, as in appointments or connecting flights

 

[Snow1964]

Wow how recently did that happen? I think it was only two weeks ago an Eastern Airways Embraer flew over me on final approach to Teesside on a KLM flight from Amsterdam.

5th October, although some planes have already been ferried back to lease companies, so might have seen a subsequent movement of a plane.

KLM last week discontinued the lease of Eastern Airways Embraer E190 aircraft service, which saw the leased aircraft operated final flight for the Skyteam member on 05OCT25.

Previously scheduled Embraer E190 operation by Eastern Airways between 01SEP25 and 05OCT25 included the following:

Amsterdam – Birmingham
Amsterdam – Bristol
Amsterdam – Glasgow
Amsterdam – Humberside
Amsterdam – Leeds/Bradford
Amsterdam – Norwich (Final Eastern Airways E190 service for KLM on 05OCT25)
Amsterdam – Teesside

KLM Concludes Leased Eastern Airways E190 Service in Oct 2025 — AeroRoutes

Published at 0300PDT / 1000GMT 08OCT25 KLM last week discontinued the lease of Eastern Airways Embraer E190 aircraft service, which saw the leased aircraft operated final flight for the Skyteam member on 05OCT25. Previously scheduled Embraer E190 operation by Eastern Airways between 01SEP25 and 0

www.aeroroutes.com

 

[daodao]

Eastern Airways residual network comprised just 4 all year routes (3 to/from Aberdeen, plus Gatwick-Newquay), of which 2 were subsidised PSO (Public Service Obligation) routes, operated with small 29 seat Jetsteam 41 aircraft, so the impact of its demise is likely to be limited. Ryanair also fly from London to Newquay, albeit from Stansted.

The Scottish government could seek another operator for the PSO route from Wick to Aberdeen, but there are now very few potential providers other than Loganair, who withdrew from this route in 2020, having operated it for many years.

 

[High Dyke]

Perhaps they needed to revamp with replacement craft.

Why is there a lifesize Thunderbirds model at Humberside Airport?

The Thunderbird 3 model is parked at Humberside Airport after it was bought several years ago.

www.bbc.co.uk

The Thunderbird 3, which belongs to Eastern Airways who have their headquarters at the airport, measures 60ft (18m) and is a well known local landmark.

 

[vuzzeho]

LNER, ScotRail, Northern, and TPE are offering Eastern Airways passengers free standard class travel.

UK Civil Aviation Authority Statement: Eastern Airways | UK Civil Aviation Authority

Eastern Airways, which operated regional services from airports across the United Kingdom, has entered administration.

www.caa.co.uk

Following the suspension of Eastern Airways operations, London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), ScotRail, TransPennine Express (TPE), and Northern will offer free Standard Class travel to Eastern Airways staff and customers on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 October, on suitable routes operated by each train company.

To access this support, affected individuals should present either an Eastern Airways employee ID, boarding pass, or flight confirmation to station staff.

 

[ainsworth74]

5th October, although some planes have already been ferried back to lease companies, so might have seen a subsequent movement of a plane.

Hmm must have been a bit longer ago than I thought as I checked Flightradar24 and it was 100% an Amsterdam - Teesside flight.

 

[Butts]

Not surprised they have croaked - their fares have always been extortionate - made Loganair look cheap and that's saying something.

 

[Titfield]

Not surprised they have croaked - their fares have always been extortionate - made Loganair look cheap and that's saying something.

The fares have reflected the cost of operating low capacity aircraft on routes where there is little if any elasticity of demand.

As someone who was once involved with an airline who operated Island services we tried a low fare experiment and all that happened was that passenger numbers rose slightly but the reduction in revenue was considerable. Island based communities say give us lower fares and we will travel more but the reality is generally speaking they shift their travelling to when fares are lower they do not make additional flights because the fares are lower.

The costs imposed by small airports on airlines such as Eastern tend to be high because the costs of such items as fire cover, atc, terminal staffing are spread over a relatively small number of passengers.

 

[MP33]

Here is a rail ticket, to your destination at Teeside airport. Only one small problem.

 

[thejuggler]

Those Jetstreams are also probably reaching end of economic life, certainly in the UK.

I flew on them a few times when they were operated by BA Regional - that's at least 25 years ago.

 

[d70g]

Eastern’s strategy has long been at the more eccentric end of the airline ops scale, and they certainly overreached themselves with the KLM contract – they’re rumoured to have been a financial basket case for years, so not a surprise they’ve gone into administration (as sad as it is for a loyal workforce who have/will be made redundant).

But that said, the days of small and expensive Embraer E-Jets or slow turboprops flying multiple times between regional airports, point-to-point and primarily aimed at the business traveller, are pretty much over, with just a few niche routes remaining (plus EasyJet cherry-picking a few routes because flying an Airbus A319 once a day or every couple of days = economies of scale). FlyBe couldn’t make it work, FlyBe v2.0 never had a credible business plan, and of the remaining UK/Irish regional flyers – Aurigny, Blue Islands and Emerald – whilst all rumoured to be struggling, at least have captive markets/leisure travellers, and are in competition with ferries, which insulates them to a degree from market forces, whilst Loganair are similar with Scottish islands routes (not so much their mainland routes), but with costs rising across the board and much of the sector’s customer base having migrated to Teams/Zoom calls, I’d be surprised if Eastern’s demise is the end of the story.

 

[nwales58]

It’s actually because they took on the KLM Cityhopper contract and were unceremoniously dropped from it with very little notice after having invested significantly in the aircraft and crew.

unceremoniously describes Eastern’s approach to cancellations, leading to KLM taking the work back, seems to be the crux of the PPrune thread on Eastern.

Oh, and the Newquay PSO route being cancelled at short notice whenever a football charter would be a less-unprofitable use of the aircraft, also from PPrune.

 

[pug1]

unceremoniously describes Eastern’s approach to cancellations, leading to KLM taking the work back, seems to be the crux of the PPrune thread on Eastern.

Oh, and the Newquay PSO route being cancelled at short notice whenever a football charter would be a less-unprofitable use of the aircraft, also from PPrune.

It’s nonsense. The KLM contract ended when KLM reached an agreement with the union which will see every KLM Cityhopper pilot lose one day off per month in order to bring the operation back in house, helped by Hop who are an AirFrance/KLM subsidiary. German Airways also lost the contract. The Eastern performance on the services was as good if not better than KLM Cityhopper themselves, which is nothing short of a miracle given the mad scramble to acquire aircraft and crew to operate them, something that has cost the company many millions. They were also told they’d have the contract for 7 years, so putting so much into it had precipitated their demise.

Eastern have been a bit of an outlier in the U.K. aviation industry, their core market was obliterated by the covid pandemic and the cost savings from people not needing to be at places in person any more. However their oil and gas niche, the very thing they were founded on back in 1997, is still there. There was a suggestion in Eastern HQ today that this segment of the business may be saved from liquidation, I suppose we’ll find out in the coming days.

Goes without saying though that the staff have put everything into it, even with limited resources. It is they who will bear the brunt of this.

 

[keni]

Very poor management (mid and superior) with very costly, extremely poor decisions.

 

[Tetchytyke]

pPrune's default position on everything is that the management are rubbish and that the airline should have done [pPrune hobby horse] instead.

It's desperately sad but it shows the reality of regional air travel in the UK.

The simple fact is that any regional airline that builds a route up will find that EasyJet or Ryanair will muscle in and destroy their load factor or their yield or both. EasyJet in particular will barge in and price dump as a loss-leader, everyone will (understandably) migrate away from the regional airline on price, and then when the regional airline withdraws EasyJet will cut frequency and raise fares.

We see that in the Isle of Man. EasyJet pushed Flybe and then Emerald off the Belfast route. EasyJet then cut their frequency to weekends only, then summer weekends only, and now they've pulled out entirely. Having forced Loganair to cut Isle of Man - Manchester to two return trips as day, EasyJet now only do IOM-Manchester on weekends and with gaps in service January to March. And by the time you've added a 15kg hold bag to an EasyJet booking there's usually sod all difference between them and Loganair.

I hope Eastern's staff find it easy to get a new job.

 

[geoffk]

A Cornwall Council representative was interviewed at Newquay on local TV this evening and said how important the Eastern Airways flights were for investors flying into Cornwall. No mention of the Ryanair flight, which appears to operate three days a week, whereas the Eastern Airways flight was daily. GWR is offering free train travel to Eastern Airways customers and staff today (Tuesday) and Wednesday.

 

[pug1]

pPrune's default position on everything is that the management are rubbish and that the airline should have done [pPrune hobby horse] instead.

It's desperately sad but it shows the reality of regional air travel in the UK.

The simple fact is that any regional airline that builds a route up will find that EasyJet or Ryanair will muscle in and destroy their load factor or their yield or both. EasyJet in particular will barge in and price dump as a loss-leader, everyone will (understandably) migrate away from the regional airline on price, and then when the regional airline withdraws EasyJet will cut frequency and raise fares.

We see that in the Isle of Man. EasyJet pushed Flybe and then Emerald off the Belfast route. EasyJet then cut their frequency to weekends only, then summer weekends only, and now they've pulled out entirely. Having forced Loganair to cut Isle of Man - Manchester to two return trips as day, EasyJet now only do IOM-Manchester on weekends and with gaps in service January to March. And by the time you've added a 15kg hold bag to an EasyJet booking there's usually sod all difference between them and Loganair.

I hope Eastern's staff find it easy to get a new job.

Eastern were relatively well shielded from the easyJet’s and Ryanair’s because of their niche operations. The regional market they served was all but killed off following the pandemic due to people being more able to use technology to reduce travel costs and operate remotely. This has significant benefits of course, but it was to the detriment of routes from Southampton amongst others. Easterns core niche had been the Aberdeen Oil and Gas cluster for which they had a contract to serve BP. As far as I’m aware this contract is still in existence and it is possible (but might not be probable as time ticks on) that this will be picked up after a restructure at Eastern HQ. The Humberside and Teesside sectors supported this industry too, and though only attracting a handful of passengers per flight, were nontheless profitable as you won’t see Ryanair or Easyjet trying to muscle in on that! It is a great shame, but hopefully something will come of it. Richard Lake is adept at winning contracts, it just depends how far he’d want to take things now that he’s into his 70’s.

 

[Bill57p9]

pPrune's default position on everything is that the management are rubbish and that the airline should have done [pPrune hobby horse] instead.

It's desperately sad but it shows the reality of regional air travel in the UK.

The simple fact is that any regional airline that builds a route up will find that EasyJet or Ryanair will muscle in and destroy their load factor or their yield or both. EasyJet in particular will barge in and price dump as a loss-leader, everyone will (understandably) migrate away from the regional airline on price, and then when the regional airline withdraws EasyJet will cut frequency and raise fares.

We see that in the Isle of Man. EasyJet pushed Flybe and then Emerald off the Belfast route. EasyJet then cut their frequency to weekends only, then summer weekends only, and now they've pulled out entirely. Having forced Loganair to cut Isle of Man - Manchester to two return trips as day, EasyJet now only do IOM-Manchester on weekends and with gaps in service January to March. And by the time you've added a 15kg hold bag to an EasyJet booking there's usually sod all difference between them and Loganair.

I hope Eastern's staff find it easy to get a new job.

Sounds like the story of the Glasgow/Southampton route.
Loganair wasn't particularly cheap but ran 3-4 times per day. EasyJet started running a few days a week with bargain fares, Loganair withdrew and the easyJet fares shot up with one flight on some days.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Skybus (IoSS Coy) have been awarded the Newquay to Gatwick PSO service using ATR72 aircraft. On mobile so can't post link.

 

[richard1976]

Skybus (IoSS Coy) have been awarded the Newquay to Gatwick PSO service using ATR72 aircraft. On mobile so can't post link.

Using a wet leased ATR 72 from Blue Islands

Newquay flight route to London to be restored later this month

A temporary deal with airline Skybus allows route between Newquay and London to resume.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[gingerheid]

Regional aviation is not a fun game. So far we've lost services and / or airports at Anglesey, Blackpool, Cambridge, Carlisle, Coventry, Doncaster, Gloucester, Lydd, Manston, Oxford, Plymouth, Sheffield, Shoreham & Swansea. I wonder if that list will get added to as a result of this.

 

[FinsburyPark]

Regional aviation is not a fun game. So far we've lost services and / or airports at Anglesey, Blackpool, Cambridge, Carlisle, Coventry, Doncaster, Gloucester, Lydd, Manston, Oxford, Plymouth, Sheffield, Shoreham & Swansea. I wonder if that list will get added to as a result of this.

The only possible saver would be if we had an essential air service regulation like in the USA where government financially props it up.

Leaving it to for profit companies to do leaves it open to airlines going under.

I wonder how Aurigny Air Service is performing finacially as this is one of the last players in this game, the others are Isles of Scilly Skybus and Loganair.

 

[signed]

I wonder how Aurigny Air Service is performing finacially

Their annual returns are public

https://www.aurigny.com/about-us/annual-accounts

FY2024 annual report shows a balance sheet of -£4M, it was +£1.6M on FY2023

 

[pug1]

Think a think to remember here is that after Covid there is a greater tendency for people to work flexibly/remotely from a central location and this will inevitably have a knock on to regional flights where business need has turned into a rarity. Eastern suffered, FlyBe were finished off before this change could take hold but its reincarnation quickly found that the passenger numbers weren’t there any more. Aurigny might do ok as they serve the Channel Islands so they need air travel, same with Blue Islands and of course Skybus in Cornwall primarily linking up to the Scilly isles. Loganair offer a similar lifeline service in Scotland. Other than that I just think the squeeze is too much. I question the value of the Cornish PSO when Ryanair offer a London route which is probably far more cost effective. Eastern weren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last.

 

[FinsburyPark]

One place where Flybe didnt help themselves is having a route that uses Heathrow. Also Loganair does a Heathrow service to and from Dundee.

Because of the landing fees + other fees, this airport is a peculiar choice for a regional carrier that mostly serves UK domestic market.

Its something that works for national flag carriers. I fail to see how Heathrow could work for a small regional carrier.

Good luck to Loganair if they can pull a profit from that route, but just cannot envision how this airport fits into to the profit strategy of these regional carriers.

 

[daodao]

One place where Flybe didnt help themselves is having a route that uses Heathrow. Also Loganair does a Heathrow service to and from Dundee.

Because of the landing fees + other fees, this airport is a peculiar choice for a regional carrier that mostly serves UK domestic market.

Its something that works for national flag carriers. I fail to see how Heathrow could work for a small regional carrier.

Good luck to Loganair if they can pull a profit from that route, but just cannot envision how this airport fits into to the profit strategy of these regional carriers.

The Heathrow to Dundee air service is a PSO (Public Service Obligation) route, and is extended to Kirkwall and Sumburgh twice weekly for each of these 2 airports.

Think a think to remember here is that after Covid there is a greater tendency for people to work flexibly/remotely from a central location and this will inevitably have a knock on to regional flights where business need has turned into a rarity. Eastern suffered, FlyBe were finished off before this change could take hold but its reincarnation quickly found that the passenger numbers weren’t there any more. Aurigny might do ok as they serve the Channel Island so they need air travel, same with Blue Islands and of course Skybus in Cornwall primarily linking up to the Scilly isles. Loganair offer a similar lifeline service in Scotland. Other than that I just think the squeeze is too much. I question the value of the Cornish PSO when Ryanair offer a London route which is probably far more cost effective. Eastern weren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last.

The Gatwick-Newquay air service is being reinstated as a PSO route to maintain a scheduled air service from Cornwall to London every weekday, which is not commercially viable and which Ryanair does not provide daily.

Aurigny no longer serves Jersey, so its routes aren't vulnerable to predation by low cost carriers, whose jets are too big to serve Alderney and Guernsey airports. The same is not true of Blue Islands, which primarily serves Jersey, where Easyjet has a major presence.

As for Eastern's other former routes from Aberdeen, there are already discussions about reviving the PSO service to Wick, but the other 2 routes, that primarily served the declining oil industry, are less likely to reappear, particularly that to Teesside.