Originally Posted by
kcockayne
since it was introduced, hardly any new routes have opened up
Heathrow, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Southend, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Cardiff.... OK... not all were successful and most will not re-appear after COVID. But probably none of them, with the exception of the Scottish routes, would probably have started up without the Quasi Open Skies policy. Aurigny would have blocked them all and BI would have blocked Bournemouth. And yet those two airlines are infamous for trying compete against each other. And Aurigny themselves, not only entering routes served by BI, also launched routes that competed with and drew traffic from their other routes, i.e. Norwich, Leeds and LCY.
But, at the end of the day, I am very much in favour of a state-owned airline, to protect a jurisdiction's interests, ( just as the harbour and airport is and just as I think a public-sector ferry service would be of benefit ).... it just needs better ( much better ) management. :-(