Mme-gro
Just returned from a few days in Barcelona going out on the inaugral flight on Tues coming back today (Saturday). As UkLad007 states, the first inbound from GRO was carrying only 13 pax which i thought was actually quite good given that this route will rely massively on outbound pax. Load factors on both legs were approx 90%. In fact Tues flight had 165 pax exactly as overheard servisair check in agent discuss this with the Dublin pax service agent who said there was 84 pax on the DUB which I was pleasantly surprised by given it was a tues and outside school holidays etc.
Back to GRO I'm very confident that this will be a success even after it starts from NCL as I think FR's aggressive prices will always attract pax from the NCL area if the NCL flight is more expensive and its finally a route that offers what MME pax want...a city break popular with stag do's etc and on the door step of bucket and spade destinations like tossa del mar and estartit.
As for LHR the words flooding and market spring to mind as anyone will know that there is not the demand for the number of LHR flights currently on offer but i'm sure that Bmi can make a good go of it with a refocus on what they are offering as when i flew this route a lot in the late 90s it was always popular even after the days of diamond service passed!!