Originally Posted by c52
Are Flybe using some of their Scottish slots at LHR for the Newquay services, or have they acquired slots by some other means?
I believe the LHR slots for the NQY service are specific to the route PSO, they are not "flybe's" - in other words they are not flybe assets and flybe can't choose to use them differently or dispose of them. Here's the
press release announcing the service. You'll notice that the world and his mother is quoted expressing their delight - but not flybe. The existence of the LHR-NQY route is only slightly dependent on flybe: if flybe disappears tomorrow, a new PSO tender will be issued, a new operator will be found, and that new operator will be given these slots. (If you want to dig in further, see Article 9 of
EC 793/2004.) I would therefore hazard a guess (though I don't know for sure) that the LGW slots used for NQY-LGW were similarly PSO-ringfenced rather than part of flybe's existing asset pool. (The logic here is that if you want to have a PSO service to a congested airport, there's not much point in limiting the prospective bidders to those airlines that happen to already have slots there.)