Northern Ireland European routes
Destination............ 2008 ....... 2009 .......Change .......Departing
Malaga..................187529..... 166017..... -11.5% ...... BFS
Paris.....................141472..... 149399 .... +5.6% ....... BFS & BHD
Barcelona/Reus.......168654..... 129651 ... -23.1% ....... BFS & LDY & BHD
Palma De Mallorca....156641..... 128930 ... -17.7% ...... BFS & LDY
Faro......................128091..... 125419 ..... -2.0% ...... BFS
Amsterdam.............138669....... 91031 .... -34.4% ..... BFS
New York.................99714....... 99794 ...... 0.0% ...... BFS
Alicante...................97098....... 99925 ..... +2.9% ..... BFS & LDY
Tenerife...................93725....... 57196 ... -39.0% ...... BFS
Lanzarote.................66545....... 84993 ... +27.7% ..... BFS
Murcia.....................44132........35980 .... -18.5% ..... BFS
Given the success of the Alicante route from LDY, if someone had asked me which other European routes would definitely work from LDY, I would have been able to say based on 2008 figures that it would be Malaga, Barcelona, Palma, Paris, Amsterdam, Faro and probably Tenerfie.
Looking at the 2009 figures things I'd probably give the same answer but it might be harder to justify. Most routes have lost passengers with only Paris and Lanzarote bucking the trend.
Interestingly Alicante has held its own the only difference being that 13% of passengers went via LDY instead of BFS. (I have included the Murcia figures for comparison as some Murcia passengers from LDY may have choosen LDY-ALC instead of BFS-MJV). On the other hand less passengers have travelled overall from NI to the Costa Blanca, so without the LDY-ALC route perhaps Alicante would have suffered similarly to MJV.
The big losers have been Amsterdam and Tenerife. I'm not sure of the reasons for this although Tenerife seems to have lost alot of scheduled passengers (did they lose a route?) though they have also suffered a loss of charter passengers. Nevertheless the 2008 figures prove that the routes can carry substantial numbers of passengers.
Less passengers all round, no doubt due to the credit crunch / recession / aviation industry problems, etc, but if Faro with its 'phenomenal demand' is a success, then there is no reason why the other routes (except Murcia) couldn't be.