willy wombat
I actually agree with you. My post made no assertions about the fleet capability of what is currently an unknown quantity. But the point which I did make stands.
There is surely a point here that backfill to the previous frequency and capacity levels of Flybe will only result in the same outcome. The market has changed massively in the time that they have been out of the game, and if anyone (including new Flybe) think that six Q400s a day between SOU and MAN is needed to serve the demand today, they are in for a nasty shock.
Likewise, I made no assertions about specific optimal route frequency in a much-changed economic environment. But since you raise the issue, I do contend that the sweetspot is at least a frequency which provides for day return business travel on both of the routes which I cited as examples. Given current frequency offered on routes such as these, opportunities for regional expansion do exist as air travel confidence returns and interline becomes more feasible once again. On your point that increasing frequencies "will only result in the same outcome [as FlyBe 1]" ... I simply disagree with you. FlyBe 1's demise arose from a number of issues including excessively priced lease agreements for Embraer Jets and marginal routes between a number of points on their network. However, not all of their routes were basket cases, and the two I cited in my examples were certainly not responsible for the carrier's ultimate fate. Without access to the books I cannot insist that they were profitable, but I would be quite surprised if they were not.