Catchment areas
Hi, I an new on here, but like a few others I have also been following this thread.
It is interesting that people keep mentioning and trying to guess what an airports catchment is. eg 30 or 40 % for Sou must come from the West and poeple from Portmouth/Brighton probably go to London Airports. Dont shoot me down here but I am sure I remember that Flybe did a survey of their passengers 2 or 3 years ago at Sou and actually found that some 25% of them came from within the M25 boundary. I unfortunaltely cannot find the article but if true that sort of blows some of the theories out of the water. Sous catchment is much wider than thought of.. But then if BOH had the right routes, with the right types of aicraft then I am sure their catchment would be of a similar scale. Not quite sure you would get the same portion of people trecking down from within the M25 but you might get a few from nearer Britsol way, etc.. What I am trying to say is the travelling public look around, for instance in the last couple of years I have gone to Prague twice from Stansted, well I certainly wouldnt class myself as in the Stansted catchment but the flights were the best deal. Also, I am flying to Malta in october and did check out Ryanair from BOH but it was actually cheaper to fly Air Malta from LHR!!
All I am saying is at the moment Flybe have the perfect model for Sou. BOH at the moment has not found the right airline with the right model !