dwlpl wrote on 12th February 2004 at 17:36 :
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I would have thought that the easyJet routes out of Basle would have lasting implications for Zurich continuing as a base rather than Geneva.
ZRH is not an EZJ base. It holds there less than 2% of the market share and will hold even less: EZJ is cancelling its daily flight Gatwick-ZRH, only keeping its Luton-ZRH flight.
EZJ says the pax tax in ZRH is way to expensive (CHF 36.-) to make the Gatwick flight attractive enough for its customers. Luton tax is cheaper than the Gatwick one and can compensate for the expensive one in ZRH.
On another hand, EZJ has a base in GVA for 5 A/C. It is negociating or has negociated the reopening of an old terminal in GVA for the winter shedule 2005-2006, with a "simplified service" that would allow all companies interested in using this old terminal to pay less than the actual CHF 19.- pax tax, which is already quite cheap.
In exchange for the 5 to 10 million Swiss francs reshuffle of the old terminal by the GVA airport, EZJ would double its presence there, with a base of 10 A/C instead of 5 now.
If EuroAirport in Basel offers an even better deal, EZJ could shift its plan from GVA to Basel.
Basel has some advantages: no concurrence from the high-speed train GVA-Paris, a number of whaelthy business pax thanks to the pharmaceutical industry, a market deserted by the Swiss Int'l national carrier, and so on...
Therefore, it would be highly interesting to know if the deal between EZJ and the GVA airport has been closed or if it still being negociated...
