debate about numbers of pax and charter vs schedule
Interesting to read all your waffle about pax volumes and who has the bigger market shares..
what should be one of the most important factors for modern airports and such local economies they support is the revenue the pax generate. This in turn creates the cash flow which should in ideal worlds be used to be ploughed back into the facilities to help them grow further.
you can argue that volumes will generate the larger cash flows, however LCC carriers are good at driving down costs which leaves small and medium sized airports to rely on commercial revenue from pax with low desires to spend and limited dwell times. (typical Ryanair pax profile)
it is well known that charter pax can be far more lucrative for an airport than Ryanair pax, due to average dwell time.
The average charter pax turns up between 3 and 2 hrs prior to departure while the averag lcc pax between 90 mins and 60 mins prior to departure.
In addition, Charter will also mostly be on family holidays and be of a certain mindset that is wanting to "splash cash." this results in eating and drinking in volume.
Where an airport such as BRS, is dominated by LCC pax, the pax profile will determine commercial yield which will become critical to the management. Most LCC pax don't want to spend too much time in the terminal, have little ambition to spend in the shops and tend to be in a "penny-pinching" mindset. However the further influencing factors will be security and check-in process times.
the last time I used CWL, the process times were quick which resulted in reasonable dwell time. Last time I used BRS we had a quick check-in however a very long time in security. this resulted in about 10 mins spare air-side with the wife wanting to sit at the gate to calm the kids prior to boarding.
The only further factors that will influence this would be the service levels at the air-side catering areas being bad which stop the spend being good.
Ideally CWL would be best positioned to have a good mix of pax.
They are in a relative niche at the moment as they pax process times are much shorter than BRS which actually make CWL the more attractive airport to use as a consumer.