The Minister for Enterprise has said the new flights to London could continue after an initial six-month period if people use the service enough.

Alex Allinson has confirmed that Scottish airline Loganair’s routes have been subsidised by the government.

New flights to London City and Heathrow were announced last week following on from the pulling of government subsidies for the route last summer.

Loganair previously operated a route to London Heathrow from the island but the Isle of Man Government chose not to subsidise it due to a lack of demand during the pandemic, which meant it was axed in August 2021.

Since then, the only airline that provided a route to London was EasyJet, which goes to Gatwick.

Dr Allinson said in Tynwald on Tuesday that there had been concern in respect to the ‘frequency of air services to critical destinations’ and there was a focus on seeking a resolution to this ‘urgent and pressing need’.

He said that a review had taken place to ‘understand appetite’ which confirmed Liverpool, Manchester, Dublin and London as ‘critical desinations’ from the island.

Dr Allinson added: ‘This is a short term solution to London, pending commencement of a longer resolution. My department will be working with the Department of Infrastructure to develop policy options.

‘What we need to do over summer is look at uptake in these routes, how much they’re being used and exposure to taxpayer for those routes.’

This was in response to Rushen MHK and Speaker of the House of Keys Juan Watterson’s question posed to him asking when the review of air travel would be completed and when the number of air connections to the island would increase.

Mr Watterson asked Dr Allinson about the report and the frequency that the department felt was acceptable for those routes.

The minister explained that the report looked at the availability to get to and from a location in one day.

‘This has been strongly supported by the business sector,’ Dr Allinson added, stating that the main focus was making sure people could leave and return to the island in the same day for business trips.

He said that when it came to getting value for money on these routes that the government had come up with a key set of approaches.

These included incentives, disincentives, financial support, and routes licensing – all of which ‘will be looked at’.

The new services are set to start from the Isle of Man to London City on April 19 and to Heathrow on May 3.

Meanwhile, Aer Lingus services started to Dublin yesterday (Wednesday).