The "Routes We Have Lost" list does indeed make quite sad reading, including as it does, major cities and capitals which many regional airports in the UK now take for granted.
It is also particularly annoying that some have gone for spurious reasons. We lost the link to Milan because Ryanair thought Manchester would be more rewarding (what a mistake that turned out to be) and I still to this day cannot believe that Berlin and Krakow were losing EasyJet vast sums of cash. The timings were played around with on the former route and going head to head with Jet 2 on the latter seemed just plain silly.
One poster says that yields may not have been high. This could indeed be true, these airlines are not charities, but I sincerely believe that most would happily pay an extra ten or fifteen pounds as a starting price if they could fly from their local airport and avoid having to waste time (and money by the time you buy a drink, paper and snack) changing somewhere. Certain quarters in EasyJet management just seem to subscribe to the flat cap and whippet image of the North East and think that only "bucket and spade" routes will be economically viable. Don't get me wrong, such routes are needed and to be valued, but EasyJet should realise there is a market for 3 or possibly 4 flights a week to PRG, SXF or KRK.
As for Ryanair, I don't particularly yearn for a base at NCL but it would be great to have them fly to us from some of their existing bases. BGY was doing reasonably well even with appalling timings, the loss of the ferries to Scandinavia means that a genuine cheap flight from Rygge would probably do well and SNN was never given the chance become established and grow. Though I do doubt that the end of the love affair with Shannon means we will never have cheap weekends in Limerick.
So airport management could either have a gentle word in EasyJet's or Ryanair's shell like or perhaps pursue FlyBe to expand routes in Germany. Air Berlin might be worth talking to or perhaps even Lufthansa who are apparently happy with yields from DUS. MUC would be a nice re-addition to the list of destinations. I also think management should have a chat with Wizzair bearing in mind Central and Eastern Europe are not actually underserved but no longer served at all.
NCL has in my opinion huge, glaring gaps in large chunks of Europe. Relying on one airline would be a mistake and expecting daily flights to any of the "lost" destinations would also be an error of judgement. What, if anything, is NCL's management doing to attract new airlines such as AB or Wizz or develop further relationships with Flybe, Ryanair or EasyJet?