Eastern Airways has further expanded its jet fleet after taking delivery of a third Embraer 145 regional aircraft, increasing its number of Embraer jets to five.

This new addition follows on from the arrival of its second Embraer 145 jet in June earlier this year.

Last week, Eastern Airways announced that it was increasing services on the busy Newcastle - Aberdeen route from four to five flights a day each weekday in both directions and this jet type will operate on peak flights during the week.

This Embraer 145 (serial number 145405), is manufactured in Brazil, has 50 seats, two Rolls Royce A3007 jet engines and a cruising speed of 521mph.

It will partly fly on the airline’s comprehensive domestic network and also operate on the charter flying programme serving oil and gas organisations, corporations, blue chip companies, sports teams, the music industry, delegations and individual groups flying across the UK, Western and Eastern Europe.

With 31 aircraft in total, the airline’s fleet consists of a mix of jet and turbo prop aircraft used on UK domestic services, Norway, Belgium and French schedules and private European charters.

Kay Ryan, Eastern Airways’ commercial director, said: “We have increased our jet fleet as the Embraer 145 is well suited to our needs as it offers up to 50 seats to meet the demand levels from the regional markets we serve and provides fast jet performance.  This jet will appear regularly on our scheduled network throughout the UK and Europe and will also be used on private charter services, where this aircraft type has proved particularly popular.”

The 15th anniversary of Eastern Airways is later this year and the carrier provides a network of services flying from 21 airports in the UK, Belgium, Norway and France.  It also has two 37-seater Embraer 135 jets, eight 50-seater Saab 2000 aircraft and is the largest operator of 29-seater British Aerospace Jetstream 41 aircraft in the world with 18.