Eastern Airways (version 2) was set up at Humberside Airport in late 1997 to replace Air UK flights between Humberside and Aberdeen. It used aircraft and received support from the Icelandic airline Islandsflug. The airline enjoyed success with this route and with charter flights and started to build up a fleet of Jetstream 31/32 aircraft. In 1999 it purchased Air Kilroe, a Jetstream 31 charter operator. It expanded onto various routes during this time including:
- East Midlands - Aberdeen
- Norwich - Aberdeen
- Norwich - Edinburgh
- Norwich - Manchester
- Teeside - Aberdeen
These routes were a success but others like Humberside to Glasgow, and later Edinburgh were not. During this period the airline also got larger Jetstream 41 aircraft and for a time used Embraer ERJ-135 and ERJ-145 jet aircraft.
2003 saw the biggest expansion for the airline. It took over routes and aircraft (Jetstream 41's) from BA Citi Express. These included:
- Leeds Bradford to Aberdeen, Isle of Man and Southampton
- Newcastle to Birmingham and Southampton
Since then the airline has gone from strength to strength. It has added more Jetstream 41's and also the larger Saab 2000 aircraft to its fleet while retiring its smaller Jetstream 32 aircraft. It has also gone international; after an unsuccessful route from Norwich to Groningen, the airline took over VLM's Southampton to Brussels route in 2005. This was a success for them until Flybe also started the route and after a short peiod of competition Eastern withdrew the service. It's other Brussels services didn't have much success either. Following the collapse of Air Wales in 2006, Eastern took over the airline's link from the Welsh Capital, Cardiff to Brussels but axed it after a few months. A similar fate also met an attempt to link Durham Tees Valley with the Belgian Capital, and also a Southampton to Angers link attempted in 2007/08.
While Belgium hasn't been a successful market for Eastern Airways, they have enjoyed success in Norway. In August 2007 they started a service from Aberdeen to Stavanger, which was quickly increased in frequency. Since then links between Newcastle and Stavanger, and Aberdeen and Oslo have been added.
Domestically, in Autumn 2005 Eastern started their first service to London City, from Newcastle. This service wasn't a success though and ended in 2006, when Eastern Airways also took over Air Wales's Newcastle to Cardiff link.
Recently low cost compeitition has had a major impact on Eastern's domestic operations. With a major expansion by Flybe in Inverness, Eastern were forced to withdraw all routes from Inverness and shut their base there. Flybe started competing services to Birmingham and Manchester, and with these services no longer viable, the Leeds Bradford service went as well since it used an Inverness based aircraft. Other instances of Flybe competition in recent years has forced the withdrawal off routes from Norwich to Manchester and Edinburgh, from Southampton to the Isle of Man and from Aberdeen to Belfast.
Low cost competition, from Air Berlin, also forced Eastern from the London Stansted to Manchester route, though Air Berlin later dropped it and Eastern resumed it. Early in 2008 they announced a frequency increase but in November it was withdrawn. Eastern Airways were however awarded a major contract to shuttle oil rig workers from Aberdeen to Scatsa in the Shetland Islands in 2008.
2009 has seen Eastern Airways launch new Liverpool services and reopen it's Southampton base but drop it's Isle of Man services and close it's base there.
In 2006, Eastern Airways won the prestiguous Gold Airline of the Year award from the European Regions Airlines Association.
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