Originally Posted by
panpanpanpan
Pprune is full of "armchair CEOs". I'll admit I read that on another thread but it is quite apt!
People who see things from their own point of view and in their opinion that is the only logical option. People who have heard from a friend of a friend and now it is suddenly 100% accurate and what is definitely going to happen.
If those routes were successful from Harbour, it doesn't necessarily translate to a success from Aldergrove. A London City route for example would be competing against Gatwick and Stansted whereas from Harbour it was primarily aimed at business passengers looking city to city connections. Time will tell on all developments I suppose, I will be amazed if there's much movement until this virus has burnt itself out. Its been a double whammy for Harbour, not an easy comeback. Having said that, do any of the oldies here remember when Capital went bust a long time ago, that was the vast majority of Harbour business at that time - early 90s I think? Out of the ashes came the forerunner to FlyBe, well managed in the early days and then a few wrong decisions and the rest is history.
Nice airline memory panpanpanpan. Capital collapsed in early 1990s from memory. They were very much a pace setter with lead in fares of £29 on way to LTN and LBA, possibly flexible pricing and £19 BHD-DUB which never actually took off due to the collapse. I recall their 2 146s were G-OSUN and G-OSKI. The pilots and cc referred to them as Gosun and Goski rather than as a reg!
I think the main likely outcomes will land somewhere like this for Belfast in the wake of Flybe's collapse;
- Stobart will emerge with an operation on those routes that were most attractive. I'm guessing BHX, MAN, LCY and potentially LBA. The only vehicle available to them in terms of brand now would be Aer Lingus Regional.
- easyJet make a bold decision to consolidate and solidify there Belfast operations and open up BHD, with a single unit based and most routes to/from GB operated from bases over there. This would mitigate the impact of curfew and ops. While at the face of it BHD hadn't been attractive to easyJet, the prospect of wrapping up the market for themselves has to be of considerable interest.
- Eitherway, I suggest easyJet will pick up something in this debacle from BFS (or BHD) LBA and SOU make perfect sense.
- Aer Lingus and BA imho will step up capacity on LHR at the right juncture
- I don't see any FR upside here
Remember their are industry data sources showing yield and volume that airline buy into. So airlines don't go blindly into this. Flybe did have considerable corporate business.
On easyJet their dilemma competing with a high frequency prop operation is can we mount a frequent enough schedule viable operation to appeal to the business traveller, this is often a barrier to entry, but now they have the opportunity to overcome that.
Nothing will commence I'd suggest until late April or start of May. Current flying is a blood bath with aircraft flying around empty, this has been well publicised in the various media, so right now is not a good time to launch. However, if BHD is as attractive as has been suggested (by BHD and other sources in the media) I suspect an announcement will come within weeks. I've no exacting info but the above is my assessment of the potential outcomes. Call me an armchair CEO, but I do have experience in the industry so I'm considering all likely outcomes. I'll be watching with interest. Best of luck to all those ex-Flybe staff or indeed ground staff who have lost their jobs.