Originally Posted by
Cautious Optimist
The other routes probably get the advertising they need
A couple of decades ago, advertising of new scheduled routes was essential. This often involved marketing reps touring local high-street travel agencies / newspaper offices to offer sales deals and familiarisation trips. Not any more. Buying habits have changed completely with the advent of aggregator search websites such as Skyscanner and Kayak facilitating direct online booking by the customer. Even Google has a flights search box. So customers now go to these websites, input departure and destination airport (with the option to include other nearby airports in the search) and up come all the flight options with timings, prices and multiple suppliers listed and bookable. It no longer matters if you've never heard of an airline such as Corendon or Vueling; their services will appear in the search anyway. And it doesn't matter if you're unsure whether a scheduled service operates between [name] and [name]; the search websites will tell you if there is one, and list nearby alternatives if there isn't. Airline executives are well aware of this market shift and put more effort into raising brand awareness than promoting individual city-pairs now. A possible exception would be for promotion of a major new base.
Customers will still visit the websites of the best-known carriers such as Ryanair, EasyJet and Jet2 directly - hence why companies such as these promote the brand so heavily. But increasingly, customers are learning that the aggregator sites will display all options on a route, not just the offerings of one airline.
BTW, I am currently in Manchester. I can't recall seeing any advertising for MAN-NQY by Loganair. But that doesn't matter. Customers find the flights via searching the city-pair on Google or an aggregator site such as those outlined above.