This seems like a case of once bitten, twice bitten.
The lunacy of this project boggles me. The commercial viability of OXF-CBG was zero, in the case of Edinburgh it’s maybe double that.
At £49 one way plus booking fee (are they legally allowed to advertise £49 if all bookings attract an extra fee?) they might get some traffic but they can’t make money. I notice from the booking engine (yes, I tried it) that £16+ goes in fees and charges, which leaves even less to pay the bills.
Two aircraft available for the service? Hmm. Profitable airlines work their shorthaul aircraft ten hours a day, every day. Here you have two aircraft providing three hours of money-earning flight time, five days a week.
Did I say profitable airlines? This is the worst time in history for the airline business.
Of course, if they prove me wrong and are still flying by 2012, they will be hit (like everybody else) with the EU emissions trading scheme. Are they up to date with all the paperwork, have they submitted their business plan, have they factored it into their financial projections?
I fear they have a lot of hard lessons to learn and they will learn them sooner rather than later.