If Ezy now believe that they can start a strong courtship with Bhd and expect Bfs to just watch but say nothing, I think Bfs should show them otherwise. One advantage that Bfs has, Ezy could not move their full operation down to Bhd even if they wanted to, not enough room plus probably a lot of noise from local residents. Ezy trying to be smart, in my opinion, might end with the result they never wanted, Fr at an airport with no operating limits, but Ezy at one with limits.
True Blue
I have to say this is an interesting post. In the last 6 months I have been feeling that BHD is slowly becoming the airport of choice given the gap has significantly closed between BHD and BFS in terms of overall share of passengers flying into Belfast.
However, when you strip FR out of the equation I am not sure anymore that BHD would be gaining such ground. Easyjet should stick firm. I guess Ryanair got great deal on new routes that were not already served, this was an investment by BHD management to reverse passenger number declines plus also to create perception that BHD is where everybody wants to fly to. However, I think that Ryanair were not making money in the market as the sheer volume of £5 seats and the sheer amount of empty seats (yes there will be a dive in here saying that the yield and load factor are different things, all that accepted.)
Easyjet were correct to move LTN to BHD as Ryanair would not then go onto this route as it is likely they would get no deal given that Easyjet had it 1st.
The best strategy for Easyjet is to stay at BFS and keep Ryanair out (given overall relationship with TBI BFS and LTN), and stick with current plan and in the mean time hope that Flybe make a committment to BHD with a bunch of 175s that Europe is going to be well served and maybe that may removed the need for runway extention, in my view now this is the best possible future strategy. One thing is likely that if Ryanair get a runway extention they would drive Aer Lingus off European routes, Easyjet off many or to big reduction and in the long run take over the whole show.
It is also now my view that Flybe with some 175s could develop a nice little bunch of new markets that would be viable at reasonable frequencies on a realistic size aircraft.
EI-BUD