Originally Posted by
SWBKCB
So EZY buying more slots at LGW and reducing the flights they operate out of SOU is the sign of an imminent presence? Why have BE dropped the sun routes - maybe they aren't core to the main business, maybe the EMB leases were expensive - but if the margins were there??
The answers to your points have been known for a while. The Embraer leases were a very bad deal for BE, and they have been trying to get rid of them for years. The sun routes have always been on borrowed time. The issue has been that no other operator really has the aircraft to make the sun routes work, but SOU are finally addressing this by extending the runway etc. I do not want to keep bringing up SEN, but look how well it’s doing since it’s runway was extended etc. Low costs carriers have to keep growing, the second they take the foot of the gas they usually falter. EZY buying slots at LGW for a large amount of money is proof of this. Unless another operator with slots goes bankrupt (cannot think of any apart from Tui which is unlikely), then they have to open bases at surrounding airports like SEN, SOU etc. We cannot judge SOU until the infrastructure that low cost operators with their bigger aircraft require is put in place. Plans are clearly in place for this to happen shortly. Cheer up everyone.