British Airways is to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of Aer Arann from the London City-Isle of Man route, with flights being served by wet-leased Saab 2000 aircraft.
The carrier last served the British crown dependency from Manchester five years ago, prior to regional subsidiary BA Connect being sold to Flybe.
BA Cityflyer will launch a daily weekday service on May 28, before adding two further daily weekday flights, plus one Saturday and two Sunday services from June 25.
Travellers should note that while the route will initially be served by the carrier’s modern 76-seat Embraer 170 aircraft, this will change at the end of June when BA will wet lease 50-seater Saab 2000 aircraft from Eastern Airways to operate the service.
BA says that the aircraft “will be painted in British Airways livery, and crew will wear British Airways uniform and customers will receive the full British Airways service”.
Weekday flights will depart LCY at 0725, 1300 and 1740, with the return legs leaving the Isle of Man at 0915, 1450 and 1930.
Flybe currently flies from Luton and Gatwick to the Isle of Man, with BA codesharing on the latter service.
Aer Aran dropped its LCY-Isle of Man flights on April 11, when interim CEO Sean Brogan said the decision was due to “our evolving new business model which is based on providing connectivity and frequency on flights between the UK and Ireland and onwards to the USA and unfortunately the Isle of Man-London City route is not a strategic fit with this”.
ba.com