Call me cynical if you want but, with the announcement of the Gatwick base, I feel the writing is on the wall for the BFS base. Their 12 months at BFS (their first base outside Ireland) has hardly been a resounding success despite claims to the contrary from DM. The only route which has shown reasonable success is LHR and even then they are still carrying less than half the passenger numbers of BMI from BHD. Hardly surprising when passenger numbers from LHR to Belfast have been reducing consistently over the past few years. Other routes out of BFS have been started and pulled within months which would suggest that their market research into whether there was demand for these routes was somewhat wide of the mark in the first place.
To be fair to EI, their foray into the already saturated Belfast market was due more to massive pressure from both the British and Irish governments than for any commercial reasons. I hope I am proved wrong but I do believe there will no base at BFS in 12 months time with the based aircraft being redeployed to other bases such as Gatwick and the precious slots at LHR being put to more profitable use. Just my opinion.
Last edited by ALLMCC; 19th Dec 2008 at 21:49.