Stobart Air

If you went spotting in Dublin, Cork or Belfast City between 2010 and 2021, you very likely saw them – only rarely under their own name. The ATR turboprops in Aer Lingus colors with the addition “Regional” were not flown by Aer Lingus but by Stobart Air, the former Aer Arann. This airline’s story runs from a single Islander to the Aran Islands to an ATR fleet that connected numerous British cities with Ireland. In June 2021 it suddenly came to an end. This page shows you how to place old sightings correctly and how to recognize Stobart aircraft in your archive.

Stobart Air at a glance

Stobart Air was an Irish regional airline based in Dublin that existed from 1970 to June 2021 – most of that time under the name Aer Arann. Its main bases at the end were Dublin Airport, Cork and Belfast City. For Flybe, bases on the Isle of Man and in London Southend were added at times.

What was special about this airline: in its last eleven years it hardly appeared under its own name anymore. From March 2010 it flew the regional routes of Aer Lingus under the brand Aer Lingus Regional, and from 2012 even exclusively. The aircraft wore Aer Lingus paint and flight numbers began with EI – but crew, maintenance and flight operations came from Aer Arann and later Stobart Air. For spotters this is a classic case where the brand and the actual operator diverge.

From Galway to the Aran Islands: the beginnings

The story begins in August 1970 on Ireland’s west coast. Aer Arann, founded by James Coen and Ralph Langan, launched the island air service from Galway to the Aran Islands with a single Britten-Norman Islander. The name says it all: “Aer Arann” means roughly “Air Aran.” The small, rugged Islander with room for a handful of passengers was just right for the short runways of the island airstrips.

In 1994 Pádraig Ó Céidigh and Eugene O’Kelly took over the airline and turned the island service into a real regional airline. From 1998, scheduled flights were added, including state-subsidized connections (Public Service Obligation, or PSO) from Dublin to Donegal and Sligo. At that time Aer Arann flew, among other types, the Short 360 – the boxy turboprop from Belfast, which the airline used from 1998 to 2001. From 2002 it also flew to Britain and Jersey, and in 2004 to Lorient and Nantes in Brittany.

The peak of the independent Aer Arann came around 2007: the airline reported revenue of around 100 million euros and more than 1.15 million passengers. By then the fleet consisted mainly of ATR turboprops – the ATR 42-300, ATR 72-200 and ATR 72-500. In summer 2008, through a cooperation, Aer Arann also used BAe 146 jets, including to Málaga, Faro, Bordeaux and Amsterdam.

Aer Lingus Regional: the franchise model

After the financial crisis, Aer Arann came under pressure. In 2008 a cost-cutting program followed in which around 70 jobs were lost. The rescue came in the form of a new business model: in January 2010 Aer Arann and Aer Lingus created the brand Aer Lingus Regional, and it launched on March 28, 2010.

The principle is widespread among regional airlines. The large network carrier sells the tickets under its own flight number and supplies the brand and distribution, while the partner provides aircraft, crews and flight operations. How this works in general is explained in the article on codeshare flights; the principle of the wet lease is related, in which an airline flies an aircraft with crew for another.

In the same year, in August 2010, Aer Arann had to enter court-supervised creditor protection (examinership). In October 2010 Britain’s Stobart Group was named preferred investor; in November 2010 the company Everdeal, in which Stobart initially held 5 percent, took over the airline. In 2011 the state-subsidized domestic routes ended, and on March 25, 2012, all remaining flights moved to Aer Lingus Regional. That made Aer Arann disappear from the skies as a brand of its own.

Period	Name / brand	Role
1970–1994	Aer Arann	Island air service Galway–Aran Islands
1994–2010	Aer Arann	Independent regional airline with scheduled and PSO flights
2010–2012	Aer Arann / Aer Lingus Regional	Mixed operation under both brands
2012–2014	Aer Arann as Aer Lingus Regional	Franchise flights for Aer Lingus only
2014–2021	Stobart Air	Aer Lingus Regional plus flights for Flybe, BA CityFlyer and KLM Cityhopper

The Stobart Air name and the Flybe chapter

In March 2014 the airline announced the new name Stobart Air. The change was tied to a large refinancing; at that time the Stobart Group already held the majority of the owner company Everdeal. In February 2017 Stobart finally took over all shares, plus the leasing company Propius, which owned some of the aircraft.

Besides Aer Lingus Regional, Stobart Air looked for other customers. From June 2014 the airline flew routes for Flybe under a five-year contract, at times with bases on the Isle of Man and in London Southend. From December 2014, two routes for CityJet from Cardiff to Edinburgh and Paris Orly were added. That meant jets appeared at Stobart for the first time: from 2018 the airline leased two Embraer 195s from Flybe, and later Propius took over three E195s of its own. With leased Embraer 190s, Stobart Air also flew for BA CityFlyer and KLM Cityhopper; the E190s went back to the lessor in February 2021.

For spotters, that is exactly what makes the Stobart years so tricky: one and the same company flew under at least four brands – Aer Lingus Regional, Flybe, BA CityFlyer and KLM. By the way, the easiest way to tell the Embraer 190 from the Embraer 195 is the fuselage length – the E195 is visibly stretched; more on this in the guide Telling E-Jets apart.

In 2019 the Connect Airways consortium, in which Stobart took part together with Virgin Atlantic, took over the airline Flybe – Stobart Air was also placed under the Connect Airways umbrella in the process. In hindsight, this became a heavy burden.

The fleet: from the Islander to the ATR 72-600

Over the decades the airline used a surprising number of types. At the end, though, it was a compact, young ATR fleet.

Type	Period	Seats	Spotter note
Britten-Norman Islander	from 1970	few	Island air service, today at Aer Arann Islands
Short 360	1998–2001	–	Boxy fuselage, tail with a single fin
Fokker 50	Aer Arann era	–	Dutch turboprop with a high wing
ATR 42-300	Aer Arann era	48	Short first-generation ATR
ATR 72-200 / -500	Aer Arann era	66 / 72	Longer ATR, -500 with six-blade propellers
ATR 72-600	until 2021	72	Main type at the end, 12 examples
ATR 42-600	until 2021	48	One-off in the final fleet
Embraer 190 / 195	approx. 2018–2021	–	Jets for BA CityFlyer, KLM Cityhopper and Flybe

The ATR 72-600 was the backbone of the last years. At shutdown the fleet consisted of 12 ATR 72-600s and one ATR 42-600, 13 aircraft in all. The manufacturer is the Franco-Italian company ATR from Toulouse. How to tell the ATR versions from the similar-looking Dash 8 is shown in the article Telling turboprops apart. In short: the ATR 42 is visibly shorter than the ATR 72, and you recognize the -600 mainly by its modern glass cockpit – from the outside almost only by details and build year.

There was a serious incident in July 2011: on landing at Shannon, the nose gear of an ATR 72 (EI-SLM) from Manchester collapsed. No one was injured, but the aircraft could not be repaired economically.

The end in June 2021

The year 2020 hit Stobart Air from several sides. In March Flybe went insolvent, soon followed by the Connect Airways consortium; in April 2020 the Stobart Group bought the airline back. Because of the pandemic, Stobart Air suspended all international flights on March 23, 2020; only the state-subsidized connections from Dublin to Donegal and Kerry continued. In November 2020 came the next blow: Aer Lingus re-awarded the regional contract from 2023, and Stobart Air came away empty-handed. The preferred bidder was Emerald Airlines.

In April 2021 Stobart agreed on a sale with the Isle of Man company Ettyl. But the financing did not come together. On June 11, 2021, Stobart Air informed Aer Lingus that it was terminating the franchise agreement because the company was going into liquidation. All Aer Lingus Regional flights were canceled overnight – twelve routes were affected.

The gap was plugged with stopgap solutions: Aer Lingus flew five of the routes itself on an interim basis, BA CityFlyer took over two connections for some time, Amapola Flyg took the PSO route Dublin–Donegal, and Ryanair offered Dublin–Kerry without subsidy. In August 2021 Emerald Airlines was confirmed as the new franchise partner, and on February 26, 2022, Aer Lingus Regional started up again – once more with ATR 72-600s. How this collapse fits into the long series of European airline failures, you can read in the article Major airline bankruptcies in Europe.

How to recognize Stobart Air

Because Stobart Air almost never flew under its own name, you recognize it mainly by the combination of type, paint scheme and date:

• Aer Lingus Regional paint on an ATR: photo taken between March 2010 and June 2021? Then it was most likely flown by Aer Arann or Stobart Air.
• Flybe paint with an Irish registration: between 2014 and March 2020, a sign of Stobart flying for Flybe.
• Tracker callsign STK: the clearest feature. The EI flight number in the schedule, by contrast, only says under which brand the flight was sold. You will find more on the various identifiers under IATA and ICAO codes explained.
• Aer Arann titles: photos with Aer Arann’s own livery almost always date from before 2012.

Stobart Air in the archive and logbook

Since June 2021 you can no longer see Stobart Air live. Old photos are all the more valuable – especially when registration, date and location are documented. If you spot in Dublin today, you see the same Aer Lingus Regional brand, but with Emerald as the operator. An overview of the spotting options there is offered by the guide Plane spotting in Dublin and the spot The Mound at Dublin Airport.

You will find tips on recording such changes cleanly in the article Documenting your sightings. The overview Regional airlines in Europe takes a look at comparable airlines; a British counterpart with a similar fate is bmi regional, and Loganair is a regional airline that filled many gaps after the end of Flybe.

Common mix-ups

• Taking Aer Lingus Regional for an airline of its own – it is a brand, flown by franchise partners.
• Assigning every Aer Lingus Regional ATR to Stobart – since 2022 Emerald Airlines flies under the same brand.
• Equating Aer Arann and Aer Arann Islands – the island airline has been a separate company since the split.
• Taking Stobart Embraers for BA CityFlyer’s or KLM’s own jets – the callsign reveals the operator.
• Logging the EI flight number as the operator – it only shows the marketer, Aer Lingus.

Conclusion

Stobart Air was an airline you often saw and rarely recognized. An island air service in Galway became Aer Arann, Aer Arann became Stobart Air – and in between, the company flew for over a decade as Aer Lingus Regional. The pandemic, the Flybe collapse and the lost Aer Lingus contract ended a history of more than 50 years in June 2021. If you place old photos by date, registration and callsign, you rescue an exciting chapter of Irish aviation into your own logbook.