Originally Posted by
Hipennine
If there was a significant viable market in smaller aircraft regional flying, manufacturers would be designing and building those aircraft. The viable ops are in specialist niche routes. Wrt MME, I would suggest that Aberdeen is the only such route, and that will become increasingly un-sustainable as the oil sector winds down in NE Scotland.
Exactly this. Times have changed, the industry has moved on from the days of small commuter airlines serving the peripheral airports in the U.K. Everything has been consolidated onto larger aircraft operating from fewer more well situated airports that can pull in passengers from a wider radius but also have millions of potential customers on their doorstep.
Unless you are offering a very niche connection where industry will happily pay over the odds for a ticket to position workers around, there really isn’t the demand for the smaller 30-50 seat airliners in this country any more. ABZ being a great example and one which itself is dropping off now.
I can only foresee it becoming harder for small regional airports in the U.K. to become financially sustainable serving passenger flights with the increasing costs in doing so. Get a reasonable operation from Ryanair or something and the ancillary revenue generated might cover those costs, but otherwise it doesn’t bode too well currently in my opinion. Not just a Teesside issue.