Tom:
Remember that strong loads are only half the equation. Especially on a regional jet, it's not enough to have a nearly-full plane - there needs to be a good proportion of pax paying relatively high fares too.
A rough calculation with some whizzy route-economics software on a similar stage length to ORK-NCE and an ERJ-145 suggests a fully-allocated round-trip cost (i.e. including aircraft lease costs, overheads etc) somewhere around EUR12,000. That's an 80% load factor (40 pax each way) with pax paying EUR150 on average each way to break even. Now of course if the aircraft is just sitting round in the middle of the day, it's not fair to expect it to cover its fully-allocated costs, you just want it to make some sort of contribution to fixed costs, so there you're looking at maybe EUR 8,000-9,000 - i.e. 80% LF at an average of EUR100 each way. OK, that's more doable in peak season, but that doesn't justify you getting the aircraft in the first place, just gives you something to do with it to make a few cents in the middle of the day. For the peak morning and evening rotations, you still need to identify some high-yield business routes which will more than cover fully allocated costs and thus actually make some profit and make the business case for getting the aircraft in the first place.
(Disclaimer: above numbers are only very quick estimates, as I do still have a day job as well
. They don't include ORK route support or incentives, for example. Any errors in the calculation are my fault rather than that of the software!
)