Having a red wine before dinner last night the conservation turned to the Isle of Man... So I pulled out my photos of the Isle of Man that I took about 9 years ago... My time at the Isle of Man's Ronaldsway Airport on the 16th of July 2007 would still rate as one of the most interesting regional airliner plane spotting I have ever done...
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| Fairchild SA-227AC Metro III D-CSAL was being operated by Manx2 |
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| My ride to Dublin... Aer Arann's ATR-42 EI-BYO... the air fare... 6 pence + taxes! |
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| Another ATR-42... Air Wales' G-CDFF |
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| Flybe's Embraer ERJ-145EU G-EMBU... Hoping to fly on an ERJ-145 in September! |
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| British Airways' Embraer ERJ-145EP G-ERJB taxis for departure |
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| Operating for EuroManx was Austrian registered De Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8 OE-HBB |
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| My ride from Blackpool a few days before was Manx2's Czech built and registered Let 410 OK-RDA... what a mission getting to Blackpool - three trains with minimal connection times |
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| VLM's Fokker 50 OO-VLT. I had flown on sister ship OO-VLO a few days before flying into London City airport |
If you paid 6 pence for that flight, would I be right in saying that is 11 NZ cents, or is it just the online conversion website?
ReplyDeleteCorrect!
DeleteWhat a great variety of aircraft to see. Must be a busy regional airport lots of different airlines, would those cheap seats they must be heavily subsidised by the Government?
DeleteNo... just pure cut price... When I was living over in Europe you could get great deals! Even fares for nothing... just pay the taxes... of course you got stung on the way home!
DeleteAir Wales, Manx2 and Euromanx have gone out of business.
ReplyDeleteThere is alot of competition in between 1st and 2nd level air carriers in the UK hence causalities.
Mandatory airport security screening for all commercial ops also adds to operating economic pressures.
DeleteManx2 is a great example of what OriginAir is in NZ. It's a virtual airline. Google it to discover the similarities.
Regional air routes in the uk, read the comments on line or speak to passengers onboard. Same old moaning over price, frequency bla bla the world over. LoganAir and Eastern both get plenty of press for being monopolistic and charging exorbitant fares.
ReplyDeleteThe common denominators are, small props, marginal air routes, remote locations. The only difference is the UK like many other countries has policies regarding subsidising life line air routes in Scotland especially for isolated communities. Saab 340, 2000 and J41 aircraft are used extensively.