Manx2.com is planning to develop charter business between Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man.

James Filleul, director, says: "We believe there is a strong market from the north west of England, Scotland, Wales or the Republic of Ireland to fly special charters into Belfast (or vice versa) and we have joined the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau to help develop this area of the business. In the next six months we plan to build up our fleet further to enable us to extend the range of charter and scheduled opportunities available."

Manx2.com is based in the Isle of Man where it has office and maintenance facilities and currently has two 19-seat turboprop Let 410 aircraft on ACMI leases. These fly scheduled services between the Isle of Man and Belfast International, Leeds Bradford and Blackpool.

"We will be adding further LET's to that fleet before the end of the year," says Filleul.

Manx2.com's dedicated charter team is led by Dylan Evans and already organizes regular charters.

Filleul says: "We have the ability to get into small regional airports, and full executive lounge facilities in Belfast and Blackpool. Additionally 19 seats is a useful number which offers a large enough capacity for many sports or group bookings, while being small enough to keep costs down. The LET 410 is a very comfortable aircraft with the widest cabin in its class, while also being very economical to run, meaning we can offer some excellent prices to charter customers. We are particularly keen to develop the charter market to and from Northern Ireland, particularly for sports, business or event led bookings."

Filleul adds: "We expect to run large number of sports or event led charters, but both Belfast and IOM and very strong business centres."