Flybe launches routes from London City

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Flybe has announced a five year deal with London City Airport to launch a raft of new services.

This is a rather strange strategic turn from the airline, which last May sold all of its landing slots at Gatwick to easyJet for £20 million. This was, however, driven by a need to raise some cash rather than a strategic move to abandon London.

The new routes will start operation from October 2014. Flybe will be serving:

Belfast (x 3 daily)

Dublin (x 4 daily)

Edinburgh (x 4 daily)

Exeter (x 3 daily)

Inverness (x2 daily)

There will also be weekend leisure flights to France and Spain in order to maximise the use of the aircraft. All flights can be booked via the flybe website here.

Exeter, Inverness and Belfast are not currently served from the airport. Cityjet flies to Dublin and British Airways flies to Edinburgh, with the latter likely to prove the most competitive route.

Perhaps the Flybe credit card, to which I gave a bit of pasting last week, will become more popular?!

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Anon says:

25 Apr25 April 06:32

Do you which what type of aircraft?

Assume that it will be jets rather than the pic of the Turbo Prop?
- Rob says:
  
  25 Apr25 April 12:13
  
  I read 78 seat turbo props ….
Maximus says:

25 Apr25 April 07:05

Flybe will deploy five Q400s on the above routes I have read
Maximus says:

25 Apr25 April 07:08

Which are turboprop aircraft.

At last a service from my locality to the centre of London. I am VERY pleased. Just hope the fares are not extortionate.
Zoe says:

25 Apr25 April 07:10

Flybe has cancelled leisure routes from my local airport (Southampton), leaving us with a choice of Ryanair from Bournemouth or the added time and expense of Heathrow or Gatwick. Husband refuses Ryanair at any cost so next Easter’s break looks like Heathrow to Madrid and an extra 3 hours drive in Spain 🙁
- pauldb says:
  
  25 Apr25 April 15:47
  
  I’m in Bournemouth and find T5 so easily accessible that I will chose BA over Ryanair, especially since we have an infant and luggage.
  I’m trying to work out though where in Spain Flybe would have flown you but now BA can’t get you closer than 3hrs from?
  - Zoe says:
    
    26 Apr26 April 09:53
    
    We did Flybe from Southampton to Alicante for a Sun / Sun week over this Easter. Booked last June cost about £100 each. Now looking for the same week next year Gatwick to Alicante on BA is about £230 each, Heathrow to Madrid about £110. We are looking at 5 of us going, my kids are late teens so can do more convoluted if needed.
    The Flybe flight did involve leaving home at 5am but we were in Costa at Southampton Airport within the hour and having lunch in Javea in the sun that afternoon.
Rich. S says:

25 Apr25 April 08:24

I too am a bit irritated that they gave Gatwick.
Exeter is a historic Brymon route from back in the day…. Can’t see that working, perhaps it is just slot sitting until the agreed subsidised London -NQY service starts?
As a regular on the former Flybe Inverness run from Gatwick, the extra hassle of getting to city and flying on the Dash 8 is not worth it, neither can I see them being the airline of choice to Edinburgh and Dublin when the competition are operating jets.
The BA ERJ SR is particularly spacious, with a 34″ pitch, important for those of us that have long legs and broad shoulders!
I understand that the ERJs that Flybe have are not the right model /performance to operate from city, so these routes are prop. Plane with no chance of that changing any time soon.

.
- startupflyer says:
  
  25 Apr25 April 10:19
  
  Actually I can see the Dublin route being used quite a bit, I have used to use Cityjet quite a lot, but they can be very expensive for an average service (and Flying Blue is rightly called Flying Poo).
  
  On visits to Dublin you do hear a lot of “I’d fly Cityjet but… ” comments, competition will be good. And the competition will be great on the Edinburgh route.
  - Rich. S says:
    
    25 Apr25 April 21:52
    
    If it brings down the cost of LCY EDI with BA then great
    What I struggle with is reminding myself that Flybe still are partly owned by. BA are they not?
- CV says:
  
  25 Apr25 April 11:01
  
  BA recently added new flights onto their EDI-LCY route, using their brand new Embraer’s. That coupled with EDI having a very large amount of BA Golds, who get access to a very nice new lounge and I think Flymaybe will have a tough time of it.
  
  Little Red on the EDI – LHR route, in my experience, has been very quiet with them offering double the amount of luggage allowance and status matches on the flight to try and better compete. The Little Red service is actually good, Flybe has always felt like a low cost carrier, which charges full fare.
  - Rich. S says:
    
    25 Apr25 April 21:53
    
    The tight seating on the EI operated Virgin little red flights has put me off.
    Brand Sun must be losing a fortune on this.
    - CV says:
      
      26 Apr26 April 17:43
      
      I didn’t notice the tight seating, but thats because i usually have a spare seat beside me!
      
      Apparently the Virgin deal was for 2 yrs, so i wouldn’t be surprised if it is dropped after that. Its worth bearing that in mind if anyone is planning to use their points on this route! Just in case.
      - Alan says:
        
        26 Apr26 April 18:16
        
        Hmm good point – keen to try a VS Upper Class redemption (probably using points to upgrade from economy) so need to do that whilst they still have the domestic connecting flights available!
Rob says:

25 Apr25 April 12:13

Good point – need to see how good availability is.
- Gill says:
  
  25 Apr25 April 16:42
  
  Shame they won’t be coming to MAN.
Mikeact says:

25 Apr25 April 12:58

If these are code shared with AF, then they may help those stuck with Flying Blue.