Originally Posted by
DC9_10
Poor show EGAC. Rain does not cause gridlock. Most people choose to fly from BFS which is a fact. Try getting to BHD from north or west Belfast in the the rush hours and BFS is easier. Nearly six million passengers agree.
Yes, more people fly from BFS, but that doesn't mean that they prefer BFS over BHD. The vast majority of people do not care about which airport they fly from, or even which airline they fly with. The reason why more people use BFS is because more destinations are served and more seats are for sale from the airport. If someone wants to fly from Belfast to Bristol, they don't have a choice other than to fly from BFS, because only BFS has a Bristol service. When Aer Lingus moved their LHR service from BFS to BHD, there was no collapse in passenger numbers travelling to Heathrow, just because people could no longer fly from BFS. Aer Lingus passengers simply booked their flights as usual, but instead of going to BFS, they drove to BHD.
Originally Posted by
DC9_10
BTW, the capacity restriction was lifted more than two years ago at BHD. To bad no uptake.
Too bad you're wrong. A public inquiry was launched in 2015, and in January 2017 it was announced that the capacity restriction would be lifted, however the restriction is still in force. The BHD website states' "Seats for sale: airlines may offer no more than 2,000,000 seats for sale on flights from the Airport in any 12 month period."
Originally Posted by
Albert Hall
Yes, so that's seven Q400s a day across which to watch the average yield get utterly trashed by Ryanair offering one a day on BFS-MAN which resets the whole market pricing down to a new level. Probably a worse result for them than the 737-800 appearing on EMA or LBA where it can at least generate some new volume. With EZY already on MAN-BFS, the market is unlikely to grow but the yield is highly likely to decline - so very damaging indeed.
Ryanair commencing BFS-MAN will have almost no effect on Flybe or easyJet operations.
Both Flybe and easyJet's schedules cater primarily for the business market;
easyJet operate x2 daily, with 1 morning and 1 evening flight.
Flybe operate x7 daily, with 3 morning, 1 afternoon and 3 evening flights
Based on Ryanair's current BFS-based aircraft schedules, BFS-MAN will be a mid-afternoon service, thus catering primarily for the leisure market. Out of the 9 daily flights between Belfast and Manchester, only 1 Q400 service is operated during this time.
In addition, x1 daily is not a price-setting frequency. Even if all seats were sold at just £9.99, neither Flybe nor easyJet would see any drop in yield. Furthermore, x1 daily is inconvenient for business travellers, as the schedule does not allow same-day returns.
However, if Ryanair were to increase the frequency to x3 daily, then easyJet would be in trouble. Flybe on the other hand would fare batter, given their high frequency service, and their choice of airport. Flybe's yield and passenger numbers remained fairly stable when easyJet commenced BFS-MAN back in 2011, so further diluting BFS-MAN will have little effect on their BHD operations.