Eight flights a week from Antwerp to London

Regional airline Flybe is starting a new service offering eight flights a week from Antwerp-Deurne airport to London-Southend, an airport to the east of the British capital. The flights will be operated by franchise partner Stobart Air.

Flybe Group is a low-cost airline based in Exeter, England. The largest regional airline in Europe, it offers 108 routes and carried more than seven million passengers last year. The airline was previously known as Jersey European Airways. Stobart, meanwhile, is based in Carlisle, but incorporated in Guernsey.

The Antwerp service is part of an extension of flights to and from Southend, with other new destinations including Cologne-Bonn, Caen, Rennes, Münster-Osnabruck and Groningen.

Flights will depart from Deurne daily, with two return flights on Saturdays. The service will increase to two flights daily from September. The airline expects to carry 50,000 passengers a year in the first year, rising to 180,000 passengers in three years. The Antwerp service is aimed at tourists as well as business passengers.

photo courtesy Roger Oldfield/Wikipedia