After a very pleasant night in Derry, it was time for the last day of flying.

Part one: Belfast-Heathrow with flybe
Part two: Southampton-Belfast with Aer Lingus Regional
Part three: Derry-Stansted with Loganair (you are here)

Derry is the second largest in Northern Ireland, some 90 minutes away, by bus, from Belfast. After arriving in Belfast the previous night, I took a bus.

The line is operated by Translink, Northern Ireland’s public transportation company, and it cost me GBP12.50 — a single ticket could only be bought in their app, which worked quite fine in my phone, though it was clearly jurassic.

In case you don’t know, in Derry the city name is disputed between Unionists, who use Londonderry, the official name derived from a seventeenth-century tribute to London, and Irish nationalists, who name the «London» particle particularly patronising. So in a number of situations, you will see both names used. Below, a sign in the bus from Belfast.

Booking with Loganair was fairly easy too: their website looks quite dated, but it is very functional nevertheless.

Their destination list, by the way, is quite impressive; they have such an impressive network when you consider Britain is so well connected in terms of rail and road (nevermind the high train prices). But then they also have a very diverse fleet, going from the Britten Norman Islander, for 8 passengers, to the ATR 72, with 70 seats.

Still, in a few moments the booking was made. Check-in was also fairly easy to do online, although, as with flybe, Loganair doesn’t have an app. In fact they do, but it look too dodgy so I prefered to do it on the web browser — either way, quite easy.

LM651 LDY-STN

As I always say for every destination I stay in, I wish I could have stayed more time actually visiting Northern Ireland. Having lived in Dublin for the semester, I absolutely loved the atmosphere, the people and everything else.

After checking out from the hotel, it was a quick taxi trip to the airport; in ten minutes I was in front of the terminal.

Derry Airport, as you can imagine, is very small. The only operations from the city terminal are with Ryanair UK three times a week to Manchester, and with Loganair. The latter offers flights to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and London/Stansted — for a total of three or four daily operations on weekdays.

By the way, the run to Stansted is a Public Service Obligation flight and, as such, it receives subsidies from the Northern Ireland government and the UK government; indirectly, then, the other flights operated by Loganair from Derry are also supported by this subsidy, since they all are operated by the same aircraft.

It’s so cool to see that airports in this time of the year still take the time to fill it with Holiday decorations. It might be a detail, but for me it shows true care about the appearance of the airport.

Since it was a Saturday, our flight was the only departure of the day from Derry.

Naturally safety screening took less than five minutes. The big advantage of flying local is this — friendly service, no hassles, no time wasted. Plus, the structure is really cosy.

There was a single restaurant in the airport and I had a great breakfast for a fair price before hopping on the flight. It was prepared on the spot and it tasted really good.

Boarding was called on time; chance of delay was minimal anyway, since it was the first flight of the day for both the crew and the aircraft.

Our ride for the day would be Embraer 145 G-SAJL. According to Planespotters.net, the aircraft had spent its entire life flying across the British Isles. It was originally delivered as G-RJXA to British Midland — later bmi Regional — on June 1999, operating for the regional carrier until it went bust in early 2019.

The plane was then reregistered and transfered to Loganair, where it has been operating since — named «Clan Kinnaird»/»Clann ChinnÀird» after one of the traditional Scottish clans.

As of late, -SAJL has been based in Derry, where Loganair also bases some crewmembers — including the ones that were flying us to Stansted.

Loganair, in fact, celebrated its 250,000th passenger from Derry just some days ago; it has been serving the city airport since 1980, the first carrier to ever fly from Derry.

Still, beyond being Britain’s largest regional carrier, Loganair promotes itself as «Scotland’s Airline». Besides being based in Glasgow, all of its branding (look at their tail pattern, for instance) reminds passengers of its proud heritage, a very nice touch.

Before boarding, a last sight at Derry’s small but very adequate terminal.

I was greeted by these very comfortable, wide seats — something really from the 90s, and I’m glad Loganair didn’t bother to change them.

I found my way to row 14, where I’d been assigned upon my online check-in. Luckily, I’d been put in one of the «single» seats, being a window seat with aisle access.

And a last picture of the empty seats — they would be occupied pretty soon, as the flight was quite full.

Legroom, too, was not an issue.

At 08h49 doors were closed — eleven minutes before schedule. Taxi followed five minutes later, and take-off went like a breeze with no traffic ahead, at 08h57.

Carrying 2,930kg of fuel, we were weighing 19,193kg upon take-off, just below the maximum take-off weight of 20,857kg.

Aided by the pair of Rolls-Royce AE3007, G-SAJL climbed powerfully, immediately flying over Lough Foyle/Loch Feabhail, the estuary of River Foyle, which cuts Derry in half.

The ERJ sounded relatively quiet for a project of the late 1980s. The cabin looked pretty old, quite clearly showing the age of the plane. Nevertheless, it was maintained in pristine conditions by Loganair, being very clean and fresh.

Our routing would take us overflying Belfast then more or less straight onto Wallasey, in the other side of the Irish Sea, and again going largely straight up to Stansted, cruising at 37,000 feet.

In just a few minutes after the Captain turned the seat belt sign off, Paul, the single flight attendant in the 49-seater, started onboard service.

On offer, a wafer cookies and shortbread biscuits, both very good. To drink, soft drinks, coffee and tea. More than enough for this one-hour flight.

After the service was finished, I went to the back of the cabin to visit the lavatory, which, in the ERJ, is located at the end of the aisle — there is no galley in the back.

Since it was occupied, I managed to take a photo of the view from the last row window.

While it must be cool to be this close to the engine, it is too close to the lavatory, so I’d rather stay some rows ahead.

Once the lavatory was clear, there I went. It was also maintained very well, although it was pretty dark… nevertheless, of the three aircraft I’d flown for this series — the Q400, the ATR and now the ERJ — this was the most spacious of the three, in case you’re wondering.

By the way, before we started our descent, I managed to speak with Paul, who was such a nice character. He, who as the pilots is based in Derry, really seemed to enjoy his job and that makes all the difference.

But soon it was time to land in Stansted. The flight into the airport went very smoothly and at 10h01, 24 minutes before schedule, we landed in the airport’s single runway.

By the way, a nice sight at the executive apron, near the Harrods hangar: the VIP 767-400 of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Taxi didn’t take long — Stansted is not a particularly big airport — and in just some minutes G-SAJL was parked in a position in the airport’s single terminal.

Deboarding was fairly quickly; I wish I had taken one of these home! Such cool branding by Loganair.

Since we had arrived early, there was time to speak with pilots in the flight deck. They sounded quite happy with being based with Derry — in fact, Captain Gavin told me he had worked for bmi Regional before moving to Loganair; bmi had the Derry-London PSO before Loganair took it over in 2019.

I waved goodbye to them and to the ERJ 145. It was a great experience with Loganair and a great time flying the ERJ for the first time. Being Brazilian, you can imagine it makes me really proud to see a Brazilian-made product being the workhorse for an airline that’s so important for the smaller communities of Britain.

Once I got into the terminal, the flight was almost ready for boarding back to Derry.

But despite the presence of Loganair and some other airlines (most notably Jet2), Stansted clearly has a dominant airline…

I then left the domestic arrivals section, which given the number of internal flights from Stansted, clearly was much much smaller than the international area.

I then had a lot of hours to spare until my flight back to Dublin.

Final remarks

Out of the three airlines I flew for this three-part report, Loganair was perhaps my favorite one. Friendly booking, friendly staff, friendly product, it’s all there — plus, cheap fares from a city airport once you book in advance. It can’t get much better than this.

By the way, they’ve got codeshare/interlining agreements with a bunch of worldwide airlines, connecting the gateways in the United Kingdom to the smaller cities. You can book, for instance, a ticket from Abu Dhabi to Aberdeen with both Etihad and Loganair.

Fine, that’s something Aer Lingus Regional also provides — and I imagine flybe, too, will do it in time — but that’s even more impressive when you consider Loganair is an independent carrier who has managed to survive the 2000s, with the low-cost revolution and, in 2020, a pandemic.

But back to the comparison between the three carriers, I would say I definitely liked the three of them — and, once flybe finds their way operationally, I would have no trouble flying any of the three.

Beyond the mainstream of low-cost carriers and huge connectivity of British Airways/Virgin Atlantic, one thing is for sure: the British Isles are so well served when it comes to regional flying.

Some extras — spending the day in Stansted

I had the day to spend in Stansted after flying Loganair — albeit there are many daily flights to Dublin every day, I decided to leave plenty of room in case anything went wrong; alas, might as well enjoy a day airport like in the old days.

As I said before, Stansted clearly has a number one carrier, which is Ryanair. And if you’re spotting a «RK» flight to Oslo, that’s Ryanair UK: after Brexit, they’ve got some nine or ten 737s in the British registry (G-RUK*) in order to keep the rights to domestic flying within the UK and also flights from the UK to outside the European Union — Oslo, for instance, is not in the EU. But it all works inside the Ryanair system and it’s all within Ryanair standards.

Beyond the low-cost carriers (Jet2 has an important presence in Stansted), Emirates also serves the airport with a daily flight to Dubai operated by the 777-300. I’ve read that Stansted did some upgrades to accomodate the A380 in the future too.

I got a fair-priced fish and chips and watched the USA – Netherlands match in an airside restaurant. It tasted very good.

But soon it was time to go home. An almost sold-out flight to Dublin — 191 of 197 seats sold, with 169 passengers showing up — in a brand-new 737 MAX 8200 and in an hour I was back again in Ireland… all for ten euros. The wonders of flying in Europe!