Originally Posted by
davidjohnson6
In 2023, Leeds had 4 million passengers, while Bristol had 10 million.
Easyjet have demonstrated FAR more people want to fly point-to-point or self-connect between Bristol and Paris compared to between Leeds and Paris. If Jet2 were seeing super-strong demand for LBA-CDG flights, they would likely do something about it.
Remember, CURRENT market demand, not what it was 17 years ago - bmi cut their LBA-CDG route in February 2007
In the last 10 years, LBA pax has grown by 20 % while BRS pax has grown 62 %
If you were a network planner working for Air France....out of BRS and LBA, which new UK route would you consider a safer bet ?
Just my two penny worth, but I would go as far as to say neither is particularly attractive. EasyJet competition makes BRS-CDG a bit of a basket case for Air France in respect of local yields and for long haul too many people still prefer to go to Heathrow for a direct flight to their destination. Air France have had a long on-off relationship with Bristol but re-establishing the route is clearly a challenge for the airport. In respect of LBA-CDG, the Air France planners are probably more interested in frequency and capacity increases on MAN-CDG. If Transpennine trains are working well and the M62 is behaving itself Manchester is readily accessible from a large part of West Yorkshire. Now if road access to LBA could be improved and it did not have some issues with weather, it might be a different matter. It is far lower risk for AF/KL to add frequency and capacity on LBA-AMS than start LBA-CDG. AF only serve CDG from LHR, BHX, MAN, NCL and EDI so perhaps, with their Dutch partners serving many, many more, that is all they feel they need.