My compliments to you, Albert Hall. Your post epitomises what a discussion forum should be about: a challenging debate encouraging exchange of ideas and expansion of knowledge, rather than the bitching and back-biting which we so often see. I'll gloss over your use of provocative words such as "fallacy" and "illusion" - though I do disagree with you on those points!
Now my response. Your posting argues the premise that I have advocated for a 100% backfill of 90 regional aircraft lost to the market (or 88: the most recent figures I'd seen were 70 for FlyBe and 18 for Stobart). Though if the true final number was 80, the same principle applies. What I actually wrote was this:
QUOTE: We can't expect to see 90 aircraft added back in to the market, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to gradually add half of that number. Which is probably beyond the scope of the small number of storm-battered incumbents still standing in the space. So new names will likely be part of the sector's future.
Note those two key words HALF and GRADUALLY. And I never suggested that NO new aircraft have entered the space already since the demise of legacy FlyBe. All of my contributions to this discussion have urged CAUTION across the board. I have acknowledged that we are currently still in the thick of "Covidworld", with interline decimated, business travel hit by fears of employer liability if an employee falls sick in the course of a business trip, and restrictions (or fear of reimposed restrictions) hitting leisure demand to destinations in Eire, NI, IOM and the Channel Islands. Even Scotland: I myself lost four EasyJet bookings when Sturgeon randomly banned travellers from NW England postcodes for a period of time in mid-2021. No, the opportunity to re-establish core regional business routes lies beyond this period of C-19 uncertainty; my posts are clear and consistent on that. But that is the timescale we are discussing with respect to FlyBe 2.0 - the subject of this thread. They won't be flying tomorrow morning. Using the example of SOU-MAN again, I called for the resumption of TWO daily services (NOT the original six) to allow a foothold for day return business travel to rebuild. Incremental frequencies beyond that should be demand-led. But until that day return option is offered, none of us can stamp our feet and insist that demand for it is gone forever never to return.
On your point about Emerald's potential fleet-size, that was accounted for by me as part of the recovery. We have a good idea of what they intend to do, and my suggestion that we could gradually see upto half of the originally lost aircraft restored to the market does include them. I specifically mentioned this in my postings. As for the point about services to AMS and CDG, regional carriers seemed to love piling in on those. They may choose to do so again, but it wasn't something I ever advocated for back then and I don't plan to do so going forward. On the topic of EasyJet, they have been proactive in allocating capacity to routes which the public are allowed to fly during S2021; a commendable strategy from their perpective, but whether or not they will stick with those markets as more familiar leisure routes open up to them again remains to be seen. Others including Jet2 (JER), Loganair (NQY, JER etc.) and Eastern also moved capacity to 'permitted' leisure destinations within the British Isles.
But, how ever much we may debate 'before and after' distribution of fleets, the bottom line remains this: routes such as our example SOU-MAN is being offered less than once daily, down from six daily. My contention is that routes such as this one and others like it do represent an opportunity for regional carriers as society recovers from C-19 restrictions. That means both the incumbent carriers still standing, and any new entrants - though I agree that one carrier per route would be desirable from a sustainability perspective. Though those carriers which under-serve a route will be game to face a challenge. Traffic may not rebound back to former levels, but I contend that things will recover to a far greater degree than we see now (as we head into another Winter of uncertainty and rumours of a "firebreak lockdown"). I accept that some here can only envisage a 'doom and gloom forever scenario' - is that a manifestation of recency bias? - but I find myself more optimistic than that. Not gung-ho ... caution is essential ... but in my view a viable regional market awaits the surviving companies post-Covid. Will FlyBe 2.0 be a participant in that space? I don't know ... never purported to ... and I certainly don't expect them to come close to legacy FlyBe in fleet-size or scope if they do (I never suggested that). But there is a prospective niche for them as long as formerly successful higher frequency routes remain served less than once daily.