BHX
MarkD
Aer Lingus regional told BHX the timings and flight numbers of the BHX-NOC about five months ago when I believe they expected BMI Baby to close the route but in fact baby went the other way and increased the frequency.
EI Regional then changed their mind and in the end they added a BHX-DUB instead on the ATR42 (10.00-12.50).
However as soon as the BHX-NOC was pulled by IAG (not baby) the BHX-DUB was taken off sale from 10/6/12 by Aer Lingus, once again giving the impression that Knock was going to announced.
Apparently though the BHX-DUB ATR72 flight is back on sale although I have not seen it myself, as I can't get the EI booking engine to work on BHX-DUB. There seems little doubt the option to open the route is there aircraft wise if nothing else.
As for flybe they could do Tu-Th, Sat & Sun Knock from BHX tomorrow, (although it is never as simple as that) as they seem to have a Q400 on the ground the days the extra BHX-Jersey does not operate but it would cause some re-timings (longer flight-time)
I do believe that this aircraft does operate French routes for 6 weeks high summer although some BHX business flights do get frequency reductions during the six-week school holiday period again which would help.
It will be interesting to see if flybe think it is worth the schedule re-harsh for BHX-NOC.
Pete