FR at BHD
EI-BUD
In respect of BHX-BHD they would be mad to challenge flybe with oil at
its present level as it would just be so costly. If it drops and when they
run out of viable routes from BHX they probably will turn their attention
to BHX-BHD. At present load factors are about 60-65%, which is still a little low I would have thought (although I have not checked fares recently) but the schedules have been trimmed a little this winter.
At present flybe has recovered its market share from BHX to Belfast
mainly due to baby's awful summer schedule timings. Obviously after
losing 2500 pax per each month baby have seen the error of their ways
(it was only scheduled that way originally for maximum aircraft utilization)and the winter schedule is better but I doubt if this will affect flybe too much.
Flybe seem to have steadied their BHX ship after the BACON takeover and I doubt that FR's new BHX-HHN and BHX-NRN will trouble their FRA and DUS routes respectively. They have dropped Brest for winter which had low load factors last time round and doubt that Ryanair Dinard has influenced this decision, well I hope not as FR are not operating this winter from BHX (keeping EMA though).
Pete