Originally Posted by
HeathrowDictator
NCLEFlights, two things:
1. The Brussels route is still very new - and does it not have some funding from elsewhere? I could be wrong with that but I am certain that OneNorthEast helped set the route up - possibly with a financial benefit to the airline?
As always - if I have my facts wrong, please feel free to correct me.
-HD-
Yes the Brussels route does have route development money thrown at it but in my example of Newcastle - Inveness it also had route development money from the Scottish Executive and was achieving higher load factors when Eastern pulled the plug. If the load factors are correct then even with the route development money Eastern are loosing money, the question you need to ask yourself is can a small airline afford to wait for the route to be grow - NO!!.
With regard to GSM again if the load factors are correct this is bad news for DTVA, again at Newcastle which currently have two low cost operators flying to TFS Jet2 and Thomsonfly both twice weekly, not once, and achieving much higher load factors.
In general though if the load factors given for all airlines are correct then DTVA is in real trouble as all loads are down some quite dramatically at nearby NCL and LBA both in the catchment area the opposite is happenning and passenger figures continue to grow. Surely it can't be long before the old argument raises its head about do we need a NE airport in between Leeds and Newcastle especially if indeed the downward trend in load factors is correct.
Also the reason you could not book the summer to TFS in GSM only have the route on sale to the end of March from DTVA