Originally Posted by
SWBKCB
But in that time your existing market has found alternatives and might not come back. There must be some benefit in continuity (and generating good will!)
If there is no other option and or it’s cheaper then I’m pretty sure they will come back - most companies are restricting travel on an increasing daily basis due to the virus and it WILL last at least another 90 days
The second you start heavily marketing the route - you start building trend analysis through bookings of the frequency and timings that allows you to refine the schedule before launch date - rushing to backfill will not give you visibility of what you are missing or what capacity you really need on the route!
My concern is both for the airlines in a fragile economic state thinking it can make routes work by backfilling without marketing and also the airport and its local economy
What happens in 90 days time if Eastern / Loganair have both bitten off more than they can chew and need to suspend the routes as they had not correctly forecast the extent of the virus and the timeline before we get to the inflection point and then regain confidence in air travel - domestically or internationally - Airlines should be planning for the whole of 2020 to be written off and plan to only operate enough to survive based on the fixed cost liabilities they have or they will go bust!!