Does it really warrant so much discussion?
Certainly, this route is not worth it as an individual phenomenon. But hey, stansdead has made some interesting remarks, like:
The model is broke. FR can't lose money on a route now, as others cannot subsidise it's losses. Hence, once a week.......
Now, what could be done to make Lourdes [or any similar destination] work?
They can fly once a week from London... because it's a big city.
They can fly once a week from Dublin... because there lives an active Catholic population (in case of LDE).
They can fly once a week from Madrid... because there lives (ditto).
AND
They can fly
daily from, let's say, HHN.
What? Why on Earth should HHN be better than STN or anything else? How could it succeed?
Well, here we go again:
The game is over for their existing business model.
Hence, the (old) business model has to be changed. What would be relatively simple and not even costly? As I said before, the creation of one centrally-located real hub WITH CONNECTING FLIGHTS. Not necesserily Hahn, but let's just follow this example:
Having such a central hub, FR could fly to LDE daily, because:
- Catholics from Milan and Rome could fly to Lourdes via HHN
- Catholics from Wroclaw and Gdansk coud fly to Lourdes via HHN
- Catholics from Budapest coud fly to Lourdes via HHN
- tourists from Scandinavia coud fly to Lourdes via HHN
- and so on, and so on.
Times are changing, some principles of the low-cost flying should be re-evaluated and changes made. To be competitive and get more passengers, to get better yields (same subsidies, if necessary, more paying passengers).
Forgive me Lourdes (and Catholics) for using you to colour this example. I claim there are still money to be made in the low-cost sector and even more potential, just there is a need to re-think the strategies. It concerns mostly FR as using some minor airports, give it a try.