Flybe has secured some slots at Heathrow from the UK’s airline regulator and will be using them to fly to Edinburgh and Aberdeen from Sunday, 26 March 2017. Operating Turboprop planes, the flights will leave and arrive at Terminal 2 at Heathrow, the newest of the terminals. BA, the current monopoly provider uses its Airbus jets for their services operating from Terminal 5.

BA will see competition on these routes since the short lived foray by Virgin to the UK domestic market.

Flights take longer on Flybe, 2 hours from Edinburgh against BA’s journey time of 1hr 25mins. BA also fly to Scotland’s capital from Gatwick and London City airport.

Flybe provides three types of tickets, much as BA does:

Of course BA also offer their UK Business product which gets lounge access and is about the same price as the Flybe All In fare.

Flybe charge £9 to reserve a seat.

Interestingly you can earn Avios with Flybe, but not BA Executive Club Tier Points.

Both airlines allow you to cash in Avios as part payment for your ticket. In the case of Flybe you must have them in your Avios account (not your Iberia or BA  Executive Club account), so if you plan to book make sure you transfer them in advance.

The redemption rates however are slightly different. This is the Flybe rates:

Whilst BA offers more generous redemptions on their flights:

 

It will be interesting to see if Flybe can make this work.