When I fly, three things usually matter - preferring nonstop over one-stop, schedule and price - similiar to a lot of people I imagine.
I live in London and am increasingly finding that for travel within Europe, Heathrow is becoming far less relevant - it seems that if you're not travelling long-haul, the like of LGW, STN and LTN are London's primary airports. Yes, I imagine LHR's fees are a factor in this.
I'm wondering if some of the European shorthaul network carriers may eventually decide the prestige of the LHR name just isn't worth it any more given the costs of being at LHR
Do the following really need to remain solely at LHR ? Could they decide to move elsewhere ?
Air Algerie - Algiers
Air Serbia - Belgrade
Bulgaria Air - Sofia
Croatia Airlines - Zagreb + Split
Tarom - Bucharest
Tunisair - Tunis
I'm wondering also if ITA, KLM or SAS are really benefitting from their Heathrow focus to their hubs, or whether it's time to move some of their less connection-heavy flights out to other London airports. Emirates can make LGW and STN work... so why not KLM ? I'm wondering also if Eurowings might want to look at LGW or STN - Lufthansa are opening a Gatwick-Frankfurt route this month
I'm sure the FF crowd will harrumph and moan (they always do about anything)... but an airline should be focussing on profit.
I know the received wisdom that moving from LHR to LGW never works well... but at some point, an airline has to question received wisdom.
Any thoughts ?
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 3rd Apr 2023 at 12:12.