[quote=EI-BUD;10098074]People are also more likely to travel from their local airport when flying to a leisure destination, and this is compounded by the fact that a large number of passengers are families with young children. Therefore, Aer Lingus would carry relatively fewer NI passengers on their DUB-MCO service than on their business-orientated transatlantic routes.
A320, interesting comment, not sure that I follow or indeed concur...
Let's look at two long haul destinations served from both BFS and DUB; New York and Orlando.
New York is a more business-orientated route than Orlando. Yes, there are leisure travellers flying to New York, and there are of course business travellers flying to Orlando, but one is much more likely to be a leisure traveller on a flight to Orlando than on a flight to New York.
So let's look at these leisure passengers flying to Orlando.
Orlando is the gateway to multiple theme parks, and can be considered as a family destination. Yes, couples, friends etc go to Orlando too, but the likelihood is that a flight to Orlando will have a bunch of young kids onboard.
Out of all groups of travellers, families with young children are the most likely to book a package holiday, given that it is the least stressful option, and is the option most likely to cater for the needs of children.
If a family goes into a travel agency in NI and are looking to go to Orlando, the likelihood is that they will book with Virgin Holidays and fly from BFS. Yes, there are other options with TUI, Thomas Cook etc with flights connecting at LGW etc, but for simplicity let's look solely at the choice between flying direct from BFS or DUB. It is highly unlikely that a NI family booking an Orlando package holiday would be routed via DUB.
There are of course people who book their flights and accommodation separately, and thus are free to choose to fly from any route they wish, but compared with other long haul routes such as to NYC, MCO will have a much smaller number of 'do-it-yourself' passengers.
In addition, leisure travellers are less likely to care about the number of weekly/daily flights, meaning the more frequent DUB-MCO service isn't as big a draw for a NI leisure traveller than the more frequent DUB-NYC service is for a NI business traveller.
Therefore, when one compares the likelihood that NI people fly from BFS vs DUB, given the demographics on board, it is more likely that people would choose to fly from BFS than from DUB to MCO, than if flying to NYC, i.e. there are relatively fewer NI passengers flying DUB-MCO than DUB-NYC.
There may of course be more NI people in gross terms flying DUB-MCO than DUB-NYC, but out of the potential pool of passengers, the likelihood that one travels from DUB instead of BFS is lower when flying to MCO instead of NYC.