Originally Posted by
anothertyke
Is it just costs though? I would have said it's markets as well. Thinking back to the days when BMI was strong at Leeds/Bradford, they had the small jets operating to Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh and Glasgow. None of those are viable business/ high end leisure three per day routes now. Those markets have gone, some to rail, a bit of Paris to Jet2, maybe some to business jets. The space in which to operate anything scheduled smaller than a 737 has got smaller and smaller. The contract market such as Toulouse, Stuttgart, oil industry traffic etc seems to have got weaker. Cost control--- sure, but that can only take you so far.
It's not about cost control. It's about designing your entire business around the long run efficient production model. I don't know the detail of the routes you mention but I would have thought based on the sort of routes EasyJet and Ryanair fly, there woud be a market for a 320/737 double daily to Paris and possibly Brussels. The train is quicker to GLA/EDI when you take into account ridiculous 2 hours before departure security stuff plus the drive to the airport parking and the bus from there to the airport. If there is sufficient business to justify 30 people or more at £300 round trip to Brussels then maybe they were making money. I'm not in the airline business any more so I don't know the aircraft/mile and seat/mile costs of an Embraer, Dash 8 or 737. On the other hand who would have thought you could operate a 320/737 from bristol to about three Eastern Europe daily which is what I see on the departure board when I fly from BRS. The markets will always change, Flybmi and flybe didn't.