With reference to what Merchant Venturer has written it is interesting to recall that back in the early 1990's BAA did a survey about the usage of Gatwick and Heathrow airports. One statistic that emerged very clearly from that was that for every passenger from Brighton who used Gatwick to fly to Paris (LGW is about 25 minutes drive from Brighton) six paseengers travelled to Heathrow to go to Paris (LHR is the best part of a two hour drive from Biighton) . To get paseengers on a flight to have to have convenient schedules and the right prices in addition to having poterntial passengers in the catchment area.
Vizcaya seems to think that I regard London as the centre of the world. My comments may have been misunderstood so I will clarify them. they are:
1. London is overwhelmingly the largest air transport market in the world. In 2002 LHR/LGW/STN handled well over 105 million pax. New York was 81 million, ATL was 77 million.
2. London is largely an O& D market. By contrast ATL is largely a transfer market.
3. Around 40% of all Europeam flights involve London. It has a natural advantage for air transport because there is something called the English Chamnnel/North Sea which makes surface transport difficult.
4. The great prize in aviation is to get a profitable share of the largest air transport market in the world. Why not? I am sure Poland and Hungary are very attractive destinations for prosperous British people. You only have to look at the stunning success of Prague to see the possibilities. I hope Wizz are successful in earning British currency to take people to Poland. But I have not yet seen any newspaper advertising from them. By contrast Easy, Ryan and Air Berlin all advertise regularly. Easy and Ryan seem to advertise every day.
5. London is a highly competitive market. To get any fair share of it requires professionalism. Put the effort in and the rewards will come through. Fail to put in the effort and the huge and relatively rich market that is London will not know what opportunities there are.
6. The livery of the aircraft is not important in attracting traffic. The attitude of the staff and the ease of using the website are vital.
7.Airlines often fail because they forget that they need passengers to pay good fares all the year round.
8. Please remember that it is not just the destination that matters. There is a very important thing called discretionary spending. Wizz has to get on to that discretionary British spending list. If it does it may do very well. If it does not it will find life to be very tough.
Good luck to them.