No doubt a very difficult time for both the ticket holders and those within Flybe, hopefully the airline will find some way to continue on. I've seen it pointed out on here in the past that the main players in the European airline market will be IAG, AF/KLM, Lufthansa Group, Easyjet and Ryanair. There will be a few others around serving perhaps some of the niche/local markets but the aforementioned five will pretty much dominate. As the Indy mentioned, as soon as regional airlines identify the demand, the larger carriers arrive with their stronger economies of scale and price out the competition.
Originally Posted by
fergusd
There are no high speed, comfortable or even vaguely affordable trains in the UK . . . flying on carriers like flybe is, practically, the only way for many people to travel.
It depends heavily on which journey a passenger wishes to take. Most journeys to/from London, or to/from any locations along one of the main lines out of London, tend to be fairly fast, for example Newcastle-London can be as done is as little as 2hr40mins. Anything that's from one regional city to another (e.g. Derby-Southampton, or Bristol-Newcastle) tends to be much slower, that's where regional airlines would appear to have a niche. The railway fares system is very cheap if you book 12 weeks in advance, flying is most likely better if you need something at shorter notice.
As for comfort, Class 220/221/222 and Class 390 trains, which together form quite a considerable portion of the express fleet, were designed to operate in a tilting mode to increase speed to curved sections of track. The British loading gauge, which is one of the most restrictive in the world, required that due to the tilt feature, the bodyshells be narrower than usual. Therefore, the interior of these trains is very cramped. Anything that's derived from Mark 3 coaching stock, e.g. the HST, tends to be far better especially with the original IC70 seating which has lots of tables.
If HS2 is done properly, I think flying between London and Scotland will be massively reduced in the way that Eurostar has taken 80% of the combined Air/Rail market between London and Paris.