Eastern Airways (T3, Humberside) has announced it will launch two new routes to Gibraltar in May 2021, which are also the carrier's first scheduled services to be operated with its newly inducted E190.
The airline plans to serve the British Overseas Territory, located at the Iberian Peninsula's southern tip, from Birmingham, GB (starting on May 24) and Southampton (May 28). Each of the routes will initially be operated 2x weekly. The Embraer aircraft will be based out of Southampton.
Eastern Airways does not currently serve Gibraltar, and neither of the two UK airports has a scheduled connection to the territory.
The carrier added its first E190, ER-ECC (msn 19000130), in July 2020. The ex-Air Moldova aircraft, dry-leased from GECAS, has been parked at Humberside airport since early October 2020, following a period of maintenance at Nottingham East Midlands airport, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows. ch-aviation has learned that the aircraft will shortly be registered as G-CLSN.
The airline plans to use the E190 for other services before launching the two routes to Gibraltar.
In early 2020, Eastern Airways announced plans to add three of the Embraer regional jets in total for its expansion strategy. It is unclear if the carrier plans to maintain these plans in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline did not elaborate on this topic when asked by ch-aviation.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Eastern Airways also operates two ATR72-600s, twelve Jetstream 41s, two E145s, and one E170.
