With an economy picking up, presumably the fly for free / 1 euro / 1 pound will be increasingly limited to mid-week and routes to cold places in winter ?
It might be worthwhile pointing out that someone on the FR board (Cawley ?) publicly stated that FR expect to raise fares in 2010, particularly post April. SkyEurope, MyAir and Globespan all ceased flying in the last 12 months - that translates into increased pricing power for FR
The LCC market in Europe is in any case looking as if it might be transitioning from a mid-game phase to an end-game phase. AB, U2 and FR are the dominant players. 4U are owned by another big company, LH. Thomson / TUI are a major company as well. The remainder are all small to medium sized operators each in their own little niche (e.g. flyBE, Monarch, Norwegian and Wizz). It is possible that the 2nd and 3rd tier airlines are going to either consolidate (i.e. merge, acquire or be acquired) or struggle to retain current profit margins while the bigger players take the richer pickings. If for example, FR were to expand heavily at Bologna in 2011, it is possible that WindJet may have to reassess their strategy
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 31st Jan 2010 at 21:39.