I am keeping an open mind about FLYbe, i have heard rumours from many non-aviation enthustasts that it intends to start a few routes from HUY.
I read somewhere that you suggested only 1% of passengers at Humberside Airport were attributed to South Yorkshire. Being a bit of a statistician I find that incredibly hard to understand, paricularly as Humberside, I believe, is bordered by Doncaster to the west. I don't suppose you can cite your source Andy?
It was in the Aircraft Illustrated article about DSA. It is from the CAA apparantly! Doncaster is at least 40 miles away by car and i would have thaught that NEMA would have been the prefered choice for South Yorks air pax!
The problem is that HUY has not got the type of operation that people would travel for but it does an OK job at serving the local area. If a major brand name came in, like at Cardiff with BMIbaby (BMIBaby having chosen Cardiff due to the lack of lo-co operations so no direct competition, they believed that pax from Bristol who could use easyjet, would go to cardiff also) HUY could use the existing customer base with others coming in from other 'invisable' catchment areas for airports such as DSA and LBA!
The immediate population surrounding HUY (Hull, Grimsby/Cleethorpes, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincs etc) amounts to little over 500,000, which is less than Sheffield alone.
The actual Humber region, as it is sometimes refered to, has a population of around 870,000 and growing, that doesnt include alot of the northern and western parts of East Yorkshire! The airport has, within an hours drive, around 1 million people.
Unfortuantley I think Flybe is the last realistic chance for HUY to get a low cost airline. I just hope we get them. With regards to MME surely they could sustain limited Flybe service to BHD/JER/SOU whatever happens at NCL, LBA, DSA or HUY?
That may well be the case unfortunately. I am hopeful they do come to HUY, I cant see them wanting to compete against thompsonfly at DSA! And i believe that in the next couple of years Ryanair will have a base at DSA! FLYBe like to operate from smaller 'local' airports and maybe HUY has that appeal!
Who knows, i hope they go for it though!!!