Belavia's last flight

Belarusian airline Belavia have once again stopped serving Shannon. The last service on the weekly Sunday night BRU897/898 flight from/to Minsk was performed by B737  EW-252PA on Sunday last January 18, touching down just before 23.10. 

Belavia have reported economies of scale as the reason for the decision to stop serving Shannon, a route which would probably have had thin traffic outside of the seasonal work for the various Chernobyl charities. The airline's timetable shows CRJ equipment serving Shannon but the type was only used for probably 50% of the flights, B737 aircraft being used on the remainder. This situation most likely arose as a result of the loss of a CRJ in a spectacular accident in February 2008 when EW-101PJ crashed on takeoff from Yerevan on a flight to Minsk. All passengers and crew escaped the aircraft which burnt out after landing on it's roof. The CRJ fleet was halved as a result of the accident. The lost aircraft hasn't been replaced to date and would have left the airline short of capacity and forced the use of 737 aircraft with larger capacity on the Shannon route. 

Pictured above is the ill fated CRJ EW-101PJ, msn 7316 on a visit to Shannon on October 18, 2007