Scottish airline Loganair has announced it will commence two news services between Edinburgh Airport, Norwich and Cardiff as it marks its fifth year anniversary with franchise partner, Flybe.
From the end March 2014, when Flybe withdraws from the Norwich route, Loganair will increase the frequency of its services between Norwich and Scotland’s capital, basing a second Dornier 328 aircraft at Norwich International Airport and taking on six locally based staff.
The carrier will start a double daily weekday service in April, adding a third rotation after the Easter holidays to provide a convenient business schedule. As an extra boost to passengers, a Sunday service will also be added, with Sunday frequency increasing to two flights during the peak summer season.
For the Cardiff connection the airline will be commencing a triple week-day flight and a twice daily rotation each Sunday. This marks their first step into the Welsh aviation market.
Loganair’s announcement comes on the five year anniversary of its franchise agreement with Flybe, Europe’s largest independent regional airline. The relationship was the first of its kind when taking to the skies at the start of the winter flying programme in 2008.
Over the past five years, a total of 2,567,110 passengers have flown over 710-million passenger kilometres* (710,813,590 passenger km or 441,679, 086 passenger miles) on 139,147 flights operated by Loganair under the Flybe brand; and over 6% of these passengers have taken advantage of the convenient connecting flights between Loganair and Flybe’s regional network. Loganair currently flies 25 routes under the Flybe brand including Norwich to Manchester and Guernsey.
Phil Preston, Chief Operating Officer at Loganair, added: “We are delighted to take on the Edinburgh services providing the much needed frequency on the routes to support the local business communities.
“Through our partnership with Flybe, we’ve been able to develop services from Edinburgh, which will also open up connections onto our extensive Scottish network including Orkney and Shetland, will be well received by business and leisure passengers.”
