NEW HEATHROW AND LONDON CITY FLIGHTS ENHANCE ISLE OF MAN’S CONNECTIVITY
From today (Tuesday 3 May) Loganair, the UK’s largest regional airline, will re-connect the Isle of Man with London Heathrow, and increase its services from the Isle of Man to London City to offer a weekday return facility. The moves will significantly enhance the island’s post-pandemic air connectivity.
The new schedule of morning and evening flights each weekday to London City will offer a day-return capability in each direction, perfect for business travellers, plus a flight in each direction on Sunday evenings.
Daily services linking the Isle of Man with London Heathrow are designed to connect the island with the rest of the world, offering excellent connections with Loganair’s major partner airlines including British Airways. This provides the opportunity to reach more than 100 destinations worldwide – and customers on the very first flight are taking advantage of this connectivity with onward journeys to points including Amsterdam, Durban, Houston and Los Angeles.
Both the London City and Heathrow routes will be flown under Loganair’s codeshare agreement with British Airways, and tickets for the new flights are on sale now.
Loganair’s 72-seat ATR72-600 aircraft will be deployed for all Isle of Man routes. Though all Loganair flights are fully carbon offset as part of its GreenSkies initiative, these are also the most environmentally efficient regional aircraft, with excellent onboard comfort levels for customers.
The new services will be flown by Loganair’s Isle of Man-based team of pilots, cabin crew and engineers. The airline now has more than 30 staff based at Ronaldsway who also support existing Loganair routes to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
To mark the occasion, Loganair’s Chief Executive and Dr Alex Allinson MHK, Minister for the Isle of Man Department for Enterprise, as well as Tim Crookall MHK, Minister for Infrastructure, welcomed the first flights on Tuesday and cut a London City themed cake for passengers. A ‘check-in desk to the world’ was also opened for Heathrow passengers, showcasing numerous destinations that can now be reached one stop from Isle of Man, including New York, Singapore, Paris and Cape Town.
Jonathan Hinkles, Loganair’s Chief Executive, said: “As businesses in the Isle of Man start on their journeys to recovery from the pandemic, we know that connectivity to London’s central business district and trade with the wider world is of huge importance. After the tremendous efforts of our team in the Isle of Man I’m delighted to be here with them today to mark the take-off of our full schedules to London City Airport, and to London Heathrow – which really is a route to the world in collaboration with our global airline partners.”
“It's a role we don’t take lightly though, and our focus now turns to delivering dependable air services to these London airports that will undoubtedly be the most important for the island going forward.”
Dr Alex Allinson MHK, Minister for the Isle of Man Department for Enterprise, commented:
“Ensuring the Island is well connected by air is a matter of strategic national importance, particularly during this critical period of economic recovery following the pandemic. The Department for Enterprise has been working closely with the Department of Infrastructure and Treasury in developing a strategic approach that will provide long term security of the Island’s air routes for the benefit of both leisure and business travellers.
Securing additional flights to the London region for 2022 was an important interim measure and I am delighted that an agreement has been reached with Loganair to provide connectivity to both London City and Heathrow.”
The additional services also mean Loganair now serve six routes to and from the Isle of Man, allowing travellers to collect rewards more easily with the airline’s loyalty programme, Clan Loganair.
