After my classes at Trinity were over for the Autmn term, I decided to try the major regional airlines in the British Isles for Aviacionline (our catalogue of airlines is getting larger by the day).

The plan was simple: to do a medley of the most important ones in an itnerary that worked, was cheap and that could be done in two days.

I came up with the following:

So it would be Dublin-Belfast by bus, Belfast-Southampton with flybe, Southampton-Belfast with Aer Lingus Regional, Belfast-Derry by bus and a night in Derry. Then Derry-Stansted with Loganair and Stansted-Dublin with Ryanair (though I wouldn’t cover this final one).

I’ll update the list below as we publish everything, so you can easily read the three parts of this “rally”.

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

The first flight would be with the second iteration of flybe. They haven’t been really talked about much as of late, but it is a player to be followed.

Cyrus Capital Partners, a NYC-based hedge fund specialized in distressed capital, was a former shareholder of the first iteration of flybe — which had gone bust in March 2020. Early this year, they managed to relaunch the regional airline.

Their business model is pretty much the same as before: to connect secondary cities in the United Kingdom, benefitting from their fleet of smaller aircraft.

This time, flybe’s fleet is more streamlined; as of today, according to Planespotters.net, they are operating a fleet of eight DHC-8-400s (previously known as the Q400), with another six yet to join the fleet.

As such, their bases are currently Belfast (City Airport) and Birmingham; they also have important operations in London/Heathrow and Amsterdam, the latter connected to its British bases.

Booking with flybe was quite easy; I did it through their website, which was fairly intuitive (by the way: I love their branding and their colours) and in no time my booking showed in my email inbox.

Some weeks before the flight, however, I received an email saying the flight was cancelled; flybe’s Southampton operation would not go through in the Winter.

As an option, I could claim a refund or go via Heathrow (though the transport to Southampton would be on me). I took the latter, which was easily done through their website, at least… The new timings meant I spent more money and time in a bus from Heathrow to Southampton, but looking on the bright side, I really enjoy flying through Heathrow.

BE961 BHD-LHR

Getting to Belfast from Dublin was quite easy; I took an Aircoach from the city center and in 90 minutes we arrived in Belfast’s bus station.

Then I hopped on an Uber to the airport — George Best Airport, or Belfast City, is quite close to downtown, which makes it particularly attractive to business passengers. In less than 15 minutes I was dropped at the gate. It was so early that when I got there, the terminal wasn’t even open, but after a five-minute wait, the gates were opened.

You can see from the departures screen below that IAG dominates the airport. Early this year, Aer Lingus dropped service with their own metal to Heathrow, but British Airways quickly filled in.

Now a quick politics lesson (and a very contentious one at that); as you may know, Northern Ireland is a member of the United Kingdom, being a separate entity from the Republic of Ireland. As such, after Brexit Aer Lingus was not allowed to operate flights to Great Britain: officially, these are domestic hops.

However, Emerald Airlines — the company that flies as Aer Lingus Regional — does so with Ireland-registered aircraft. Why? Because they have a codeshare agreement with British Airways, and although de facto these are Aer Lingus flights, they can fly to Heathrow, Birmingham and wherever they please in the UK.

Why Aer Lingus couldn’t continue their Belfast-Heathrow shuttle despite them having their own “Aer Lingus UK” subsidiary remains unanswered, but I guess Brexit was a convenient excuse for them to deploy one or two Airbus A320s elsewhere. In any case, the Brexit excuse was given by an union spokesperson, not by Aer Lingus.

Located very close to downtown, George Best Airport has a limited structure, but one that looked very functional nevertheless. By the way, I really liked that sign showcasing the airlines that operate in the terminal.

And if you were wondering, yes, flybe is really back!

At 5am safety screenings opened, and since I was one of the first passengers, there was no line.

More airport advertising: here are all the destinations from Belfast City; you can see most are in Great Britain. Continental Europe is largely served from Belfast International (BFS), where easyJet has a large base and Ryanair will reopen their base next year.

The airport’s airside is quite chaotic, with the gates being assigned very close to departure time, probably not to mix passengers from different flights.

At 07h06 boarding started. The gate was close to the aircraft, so we walked towards it.

And this would be our ride to Heathrow — a Dash 8-400 registered G-ECOE. According to Planespotters.net, the frame was originally delivered to the first iteration of flybe in July 2008, also serving Widerøe and Olympic Air before returning to flybe in 2010. The aircraft then flew for the airline until it went bust in March 2020.

It was returned to the lessor and leased again, this time to the new flybe, on April 2022, and it has been flying for the British regional carrier since.

The cabin looked very fresh.

I’m not sure if these seats were already here when the flybe went under, but they did look brand new — and the cabin had a “new plane” smell, even though this Dash 8 had 12 years of flying.

Space for legs was on average for a short-haul flight…

…and the new safety card looked good — again, I do like flybe’s colours.

For this hop to Heathrow, I had taken my favorite seat in the Dash 8, which is just by the engine and by the landing gear — you can see it in full use during take-off and landing.

We would have 53 passengers onboard today (and if you’re wondering, the last seats were on sale for ~GBP150), so I guess they were running this flight profitably, given that the Dash 8 has some 78 seats.

At 07h30, the pilots showed up in the speakers to tell us it would take us some 10 or 15 minutes before we were cleared for pushback, given the busy airspace in and around London.

Meanwhile, the cabin crew performed the safety instructions, and then put on the… mood lighting? These regional turboprops are getting better by the day.

At 07h47 (22 minutes after scheduled departure), pushback started…

…and in five minutes we were airborne; these modern turboprops are very silent, and it’s really a joy to fly them.

Soon we were past the clouds that covered Northern Ireland that morning.

In some five minutes, onboard service started, and it’s cool that flybe offers complimentary service nowadays, nevermind in a short, one-hour service. I don’t want to give spoilers on the coming flights, but it turns out the three airlines did offer free service!

They offered coffee, tea, soft drinks and, to eat, a salty and a sweet option — I took the sweet digestive.

The flight attendants did a nice job and, despite the short flight, looked very professional and friendly, so that was really appreciated.

After the service, there was even time to head to the lavatory, which is located in the front of the cabin. As in all regional aircraft, it was very tight so I couldn’t even get a photo, but it was clean nevertheless — as was the rest of the cabin.

Unfortunately, at 08h31 we were already descending into Heathrow.

Landing happened at 09h09, nine minutes after the scheduled time of departure.

Taxi to our remote position did not take long, and in some five minutes we were parked at our position.

And as usual, Heathrow fascinates; just behind our small Dash-8, there lied an United 777-200, a Singapore A380 and a Thai 777-300ER. Just magnificent.

And just as our bus left… an Emirates A380 departed. Gotta love this airport: and flybe’s is one of the smallest aircraft to regularly operate here.

As such, we were all put in two buses and in another five minutes, we were at the terminal. I still had some three hours before my bus to Southampton.

Final remarks

The point of these trip reports was never to expect grand showings from the likes of flybe and Loganair; but rather to assess their convenience in these one-hour hops across the Irish Sea. In the end, it’s not down to the most comfortable slimline seat or the best-tasting powder coffee, but rather the one that gives the best value for money.

Having spent GBP50 to go to Southampton only to be sent to Heathrow (even though I could have opted for a refund), can I say I’m completely satisfied with flybe’s product? Not really.

I mean, sure the cookie and coffee was great and the service was friendly, but given that the prices between them and the other airlines are more or less the same, it’s easy to see I would stick with the other airlines, all things equal.

But if flybe gets it act together operationally and becomes a reliable carrier (something it wasn’t particularly known before), then it does have a good future ahead. I think with the right focus now, that could be possible.

Overall, the potential is there; it was, indeed, a good, service. But it’s past time that their growing pains are through.