There are winners and losers in Loganair’s plans to expand its schedule by up to 70% by the end of July.

On the one hand the ’flagship’ service from the island to London Heathrow is set to double from one to two daily flights.

The Scottish airline has also announced it will launch flights to Birmingham next month along with a resumption of a link to Scotland’s capital Edinburgh.

And there will be the introduction of direct flights between the airport at Ronaldsway and Jersey every Saturday from July 3.

But the regional airline giant has also confirmed that its new Isle of Man to Belfast City route has been ditched until the autumn.

A spokesman told the Manx Independent: ’Like all airlines this summer, Loganair continues to re-evaluate all of its planned routes as it slowly recovers from the effects of the restrictions on forward bookings.

’As a result of low customer demand for the route, the Belfast to Isle of Man service has unfortunately been delayed and is now due to commence from October 25.’

And Loganair has also confirmed that it has decided not to expand its Isle of Man to Manchester flights beyond the current one daily service ’for the time being’.

The spokesman said a ’significant’ proportion of customers on the Manchester route took onward connections and Loganair planned to progressively increase the service by summer 2022 as international travel resumed after the pandemic.

The Scottish airline, which has been given taxpayers’ money to help run services from the island, has also welcomed four new Isle of Man-based cabin crew members to join the team already based here.

Loganair says it is increasing its flights from the island from July as restrictions are progressively eased. It says that there has already been a ’marked increase in bookings and will be expanding its schedule by 70% - offering 44 flights per week by the end of July as opposed to the current 26 flights.

Chief executive Jonathan Hinkles told the Manx Independent: ’The words we have been using in a number of contexts recently have been cautious optimism and I think that those are still the words I would use.

’There is a lot to be optimistic about but there is still a long way to go to get people travelling internationally.

’I think demand is going to increase but we are not going to return to pre-pandemic levels for quite some time. People are not going off to visit relatives in Australia, doing business in South Africa and all of those things.

’But there are enough strong signs where cautiously optmistic would be a fair description of how things are right now.’

Mr Hinkles added they were pressing ahead with doubling the Heathrow services in particular ’which is where the main growth is coming from’.

He added: ’There may be the case that as borders are confirmed for re-opening and that the timeframe is certain rather than tentative, that we would look to have more services in the Isle of Man if there is the demand for travel.

He said they had already seen a step up in bookings since restrictions were partly relaxed.

He said: ’We are ready to act on this.’

Mr Hinkles said patient travel arrangements from the island to Liverpool were in place until the end of September and ’there is due to be a new tender to go out for that and we will see where we go from there.’

The Heathrow route will move from one to two daily flights each weekday, except Tuesdays in July, and on Sundays from July 5.

The spokesman said the doubling of the island’s frequency to the airport would ’ensure the widest range of onward connections are available’.

Jersey has recently updated its travel advice for incoming travellers with the Isle of Man classified in the ’green’ category for visitors.

The inaugural non-stop flight will take off at 3.30pm on Saturday, July 3. The service will operate every Saturday through to September 25.

Loganair said the latest additions to the island-based crew are currently being fully trained.

’They are expected to join Loganair’s existing Isle of Man-based crew upon completion of their training programme in mid-July.’

The company says further recruitment could be in the offing as it upgrades the current 48-seat aircraft based in the island with the larger 72-seat ATR72 turboprops that it is in advanced negotiations to acquire specifically to serve routes to and from the Isle of Man.

Chief commercial officer Kay Ryan said it was a ’significant increase in flights now that travel restrictions have started to ease’.