Originally Posted by
Amelia Earhart
The problem however is not caused by lack of passengers but by lack of flights. If more flights operated, there would be more passengers.
I understand what you're saying, but couldn't that be said about all or most airports? Isn't the key question for an airline with additional spare aircraft capacity (and therefore the opportunity to provide "more flights"): is a route to LDY likely to be more profitable than any of the alternatives?
Originally Posted by
Amelia Earhart
Ryanair operated successfully at the airport for years. Stansted operated for 18 years, Alicante for 9 years. Ryanair did not lose money otherwise they would have pulled the plug. When they finally did, it was due to relocating to BFS not due to LDY itself.
Again, isn't this a case of "we're not losing money, but we reckon now that we could make more money by relocating our aircraft to another airport"?
This is the conundrum that so many smaller airports face. Whereas once upon a time there would have been a "local" carrier with some local loyalty, or else an airline would have decided "we want to serve Northern Ireland, now let's think about which airport we want to use", these days most of the airlines are (of necessity) more agnostic - they fly wherever they can make the most money (which I suppose is understandable behaviour for private companies) so the competition for a service by Airline X is no longer just the neighbouring airports but also airports on the other side of Europe (so Ryanair might say "with this aircraft in Alicante we can fly to LDY or to (say) Kaunas or to Ancona or to Memmingen - and LDY is not the most profitable, so too bad...").
C.