The Isle of Man is a mysterious place, a nearly sovereign territory out in the middle of the choppy Irish Sea between England and Ireland. What sort of people live there? What's there to see and do? These are all questions we wanted to answer, so we went ourselves...because why not? All this week we'll be sharing our experiences in this curious island destination.

There's thousands and thousands (tens of thousands?) of itty-bitty, obscure airports out there around the world, but after a visit to the Isle of Man's Ronaldsway Airport, we think we've found one of the coolest. If you aren't getting to the Irish Sea island by ferry, then you're landing here and likely in a small prop plane.

Flights come in from London-City, London-Gatwick, Blackpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester and a few others destinations sprinkled about, but may we recommend hopping a Manx2 plane for the most authentic experience? Yep, the Isle of Man has its own airline.]]> JetSetCD 2011-10-14T17:17:23-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/6/30/13615/8342

There’s nothing like a time when we’re all trying to watch our carbon footprints and up our train travel to launch a completely unnecessary flight route. But that’s exactly what Flybe has done this week. Yesterday, it launched its London to Leeds route with "red carpet celebrations" and a special appearance by a soap star (Matthew Bose from Emmerdale – no, we don’t know either, but we’re guessing he’s the fox in the middle of the photo here).

The only thing that we’re wondering is – why the hell have they done this? London to Leeds takes about two hours 20 minutes tops on the train. According to Flybe, the flight takes an hour and 10 minutes (actually it takes about 30 minutes, because we had the misfortune to be diverted to Leeds on a connecting flight to Manchester last year, and we’d barely cracked open the gin before we were landing). And it flies from Gatwick (30 minutes from central London, and that's if you take the expensive fast train) and into Leeds Bradford, 10 miles out of town.

Once you add on check-in time, wouldn’t it have been way better just to take the train? We’re confused. Obviously it’s nice to see one airline that’s doing well enough to launch a new route, but this route is just baffling. And the eco aspect means it’s just not cool.

Related Stories:
· Flybe Coverage [Jaunted]
· New Leeds-Bradford service to London starts [Telegraph & Argus]
· Flybe [Official Site] ]]> juliab 2009-06-30T13:58:48-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/1/8/01213/79568

A paid vacation from your job sounds great... until you get laid off and still have to cough up the funds for the trip. If you work in an unstable industry, try flying Flybe where if you get canned, you can cancel your flight for free!

The British low cost carrier calls its free insurance the "Book With Confidence" guarantee, available to people who have worked at their current employer for at least two years. With some 600,000 people in the UK expected to be affected by layoffs this year, this policy could bite Flybe in a big way, but if all of them fly Flybe, that's under 15 percent of their total passenger load.

We'd rather they hired all those people back as fake passengers, but that didn't work out so well the first time.

Related Stories:
· Flybe Offers Refunds for Redundant Passengers [Telegraph]
· Cheater Travel: Who Paid Your Seatmate to Be Here? [Jaunted]
· Who's Taking A Naycation This Year? [HC]

[Photo of Flybe planes in Edinburgh: Martin Third Av'n] ]]> egw 2009-01-08T09:15:45-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/12/19/5307/5644

Long-serving British low cost carrier Flybe seems to be doing OK in these tricky times. They're talking just as positively as Ryanair and have even been bold enough to add a new route from Gatwick to Torquay.

But. There's always a "but." Their pilots are getting a bad rap all because a flight this week from London to Paris was forced to turn around and head home again because the pilot was underqualified to land in foggy conditions.

We accept Flybe's explanation that the experienced pilot had just changed aircraft and hadn't done all the training levels to get the right badges. But he apparently announced to the passengers that he was just a Level 5 pilot and Charles de Gaulle wanted a Level 2.

Is it just us, or is there a huge difference between Level 5 and Level 2? On our next budget flight we might be asking to see the pilot's license before we commit to buckling our seat belt.

Related Stories:
· Flybe Offers Free Return Tickets [Cheap Flights]
· Rules Stopped Pilot's Fog Landing [BBC]
· Flybe coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: mattingham]]]> amandak 2008-12-19T09:30:33-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/7/8/43536/17102

Low cost carriers listen up: When you're after a few more pages of publicity, try randomly naming your planes after moderately famous people. It's worked for British regional LCC Flybe several times already and they've just done it again.

This time Flybe has named a Bombardier Q400 plane the "Kevin Keegan" after the manager of the Newcastle United soccer team; its registration number now ends with "KKEV".

If all the airlines get into the plane-naming hysteria, maybe we could start using plane names instead of flight numbers? As in, "Can I check in for the Angelina Jolie to LA?"

Related Stories:
· Regional Airline Launches King Kev [Holiday Extras]
· Coming Soon to Cardiff: Airport Photo Shoots [Jaunted]
· Flybe coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Ack Ook]]]> amandak 2008-07-09T09:45:14-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/4/1/121822/0716

If the person next to you looks excited to be in the air during a commuter flight, he could be a plant! UK discount carrier Flybe was facing a $550,000 bill from Norwich International Airport for not making passenger quotas, so they hired 172 people to pose as passengers on their Dublin-Norwich runs.

At less than $80 a head, this subterfuge saved the airline about $545,000--but now Norwich officials have found out, and they're angry.

We'd love to interview the evil genius at Flybe who came up with this plan: We'll be suspicious of our fellow passengers forevermore.

Related Stories:
· Airline Hires Temps to Fill Plane [Reuters, via Yahoo]
· Flybe: A Budget Airline with Its Own Credit Card [Jaunted]

[Photo: kpmarek]]]> egw 2008-04-01T14:15:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/10/8/8537/64975

British airline Flybe has been around since before the idea of a budget airline was really born, but in recent years it's been trying to remodel itself into what we can best describe as a "low frills" LCC. With its official bases in Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Southampton and Exeter, it serves a lot of Western Europe and this year took over old British Airways regional routes as well.

Flybe offers flights at reasonably low prices, for example £20 ($40) from Manchester to Belfast. This year they've had some trouble with flight cancellations due to staff shortages but of course, they claim they're over all that.

Where Flybe really departs from other European LCCs is its announcement this week of the "spend and fly" credit card. To be tied in with Flybe's rewards4All frequent flier program, the credit card will launch in January 2008. Besides making Flybe stand out from other European LCCs, they're undoubtedly hoping to increase customer loyalty in a fickle market. We think they'd do better to focus on some of their previous successes: matchmaking, for one.

Related Stories:
· Flybe Plays Wingman [Jaunted]
· Flybe [Official Site]

[Photo: fraserspeirs]]]> amandak 2007-10-08T09:30:01-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/