Originally Posted by
Otters2000
Away from new routes and back to an old one... what was the reason for CityJet pulling off the BHD-LCY route, and what schedule did they operate for the route. Was it just once daily?
I was probably one of the more regular users of this route from the London end. Loads were very thin. More than half the flights I did the loads were in single figures. There was just one occasion which stands out when we had about 30 out of Belfast. Probably a BMI cancellation. The midday rotation of the three daily roundtrips was particularly thin.
I also recall the route some years ago when FlyBe (in fact it might have been British European then) operated it; loads were just the same then. Four pax on one occasion.
Just because LCY is a business airport and Belfast is a city doesn't mean that there is much of the right sort of business traffic on offer. Operators have learned this (if they did not already know) on London City to Glasgow and to Edinburgh, two routes which display widely different characteristics in their passenger demand, notwithstanding that their loadings to Heathrow are quite similar. Edinburgh has a high amount of financial etc industry traffic which wants to go to the City of London, whereas Glasgow does not. The same applies to Belfast.