It has been a long while since I posted but I feel moved to add my bit on this one yet again.
Any regional airline is limited in its expansion within its given region by the number of passengers available, if it wants to increase passenger numbers and the market is saturated within its region then it has to move outside of that region...... now stay with me...
Newquay is too far West to have any significant passenger growth, it has always supported a healthy London market and continues to do so and Air Southwest could probably make a success of this alone, it was always BA's highest earning domestic route. On the back of this I am sure they are trying and from what I have seen succeded in growing a handful of new routes, more power to their elbow for this and now let the beancounters count to see how the bottom line changes.
If anyone believes there are a plethora of opportunities using Newquay as a base then for a bit of fun take half the intended investment to an incinerator and lets see which burns away fastest.
There are opportunities for the airport at Newquay but the traditional schedule or charter market is always going to be limited. Plymouth I am afraid even more so.
I do not know the management structure at Air South West but from what I have seen they are certainly not stupid and have done a pretty good job so far in what is a very challenging market.
When selling a house don't they say location,location.location well when you are running an airline (which I have) those words are also paramount because without them you don't have a market, market,market!!!
Praise the Management or slay the Management that ladies and gentlemen is the bottom line.