The Isle of Man is a small island located in the middle of the Irish Sea between Great Britain and the island of Ireland. A crown dependency of the United Kingdom with 84,069 residents (per 2021 census), the only means of getting in and out are either via ferry to the capital city Douglas, or via a flight to Ronaldsway Airport – the only commercial airport on the island.

One of the airlines operating the short sector between Great Britain and the island is Loganair. Founded in February 1962 in Edinburgh, it is the UK’s largest regional airline with a large portion of its network focused in Scotland. Branding itself “Scotland’s Airline”, the airline nevertheless operates routes outside of Scotland, one of which is a short hop from Manchester to the Isle of Man.

My travels in the summer of 2024 took me to the Isle of Man, and I grabbed the rare opportunity to give Loganair a try on the short hop from Manchester.

Buying my tickets

I booked my tickets on the Loganair website, which was a pretty painless experience. I opted for the base fare tier “ Fly”, which gave me 15kg of check-in baggage allowance and 6kg for cabin bags – a total of 21kg of baggage allowance, but no free choice of seat. Not bad for a regional airline, honestly.

Loganair also runs its own frequent flyer program, called “Clan Loganair”, but this is only useful if you fly Loganair regularly.

Departure from Manchester Airport

Loganair flies from Terminal 3 at Manchester Airport, the terminal designated for domestic flights. Online check-in opened some 96 hours (4 days) before the flight, and I was randomly assigned seat 11C. I expected a speedy bag-drop at MAN, but Crowdstrike went berserk just a few hours before dawn and impacted Ryanair, Terminal 3’s biggest tenant. The result was a check in concourse absolutely chock full of Ryanair passengers queuing to check in manually as ground staff frantically directed passengers to the start of the continuously extending queue.

The Ryanair queue was so long that it snaked past and blocked the British Airways and still-closed Loganair counters, resulting in some confusion where the Loganair queue would actually begin. Ground staff eventually directed Loganair passengers through the space meant for passengers exiting the check in space, and from there onwards it was a quick bag drop process.

I contemplated asking the check in agent if I could switch to a window seat, but given the events of the day I didn’t think it was a good idea to bug them any further, even if Loganair wasn’t impacted by the chaos.

With check in sorted, I then headed into the bowels of MAN Terminal 3. It hadn’t changed much since I was last here 6 years ago, and it was still the same cramped and chaotic space I had come to know (and loath).

The day’s flight was operated by G-LMTE, a 9 year old ATR 72-600 obtained secondhand by Loganair and named “Clan MacEwen” / “Clann MhicEòghainn”. Our flight was lightly loaded and around half of the seats onboard were unoccupied, though I ultimately opted to stay in my aisle seat.

With such a light load, we managed to takeoff about a minute early.

Cabin & Onboard Services

Loganair’s ATR72 is decked out in the standard 2-2 single class configuration, just like any other ATR 72.

The airline has managed to add its own touch to the interiors with squares of tartan as the headrest on every seat. A very obvious callback to the airline’s Scottish origins, very nice.

Shortly after takeoff, the cabin crew began the onboard snack service, consisting of a small pack of water and a choice of either a pack of Walker’s shortbread or a Tunnock’s caramel bar. Given the very short route and the propensity of some other European airlines to cut back on service, this was a very nice surprise by Loganair. Of course, it’s also an excellent way to market Scottish products!

Arrival at Ronaldsway Airport

The short flight took some 40 minutes and before long we were on final approach to Ronaldsway Airport. With the thick cloud cover over the island and the surrounding seas, we were only able to see the island’s rugged southern coastline on short-finals. A short taxi off the runway, and we were on stand some 7 minutes late.

The slight delay ultimately didn’t matter as we were the only arrival at Ronaldsway within the hour. This meant that there weren’t any long waits for the checked-in luggage. I managed to go from plane-to-street in 15 minutes, and that’s only because I was snapping pictures of my aircraft.

The whole experience reminded me of my MASwings Twin Otter flight from Miri to Marudi, although Ronaldsway has proper baggage carousels which Marudi doesn’t.

Final Thoughts

Loganair offers a solid short-haul regional product with a Scottish flavour. I was quite impressed, and I would definitely fly with them again in the future.