Well this is the second route dropped by Flybe after the exit of Fr, following on from the loss of Liverpool. We have been fed this constant diet of facts re Bhd, it is the airport preferred by business pax, visitors will not come here if they cannot fly to Bhd etc. Yet on just about every route where there are services to both airports, most pax use Bfs. The exceptions, Lhr, Bhx and Man. Look at the numbers carried by Ezy last month to Man, if they keep going up at that rate, they will harm Flybe out of Bhd to Man as well.
We are now told that there might be two new operators to Bhd, covering both domestic and international routes. So who will arrive to operate domestic routes? Apart from Stn, what routes are they going to operate that they would not compete with Flybe? I am leaving out Lhr due slot issues. What would Flybe think of the fact that they were being p****d on a second time?
Who would operate international routes? Monarch has been mentioned. If they do come to Belfast, Turkey would be high on their list to operate to. But their usual pattern is for departures ex UK in the afternoon, arriving back here early am. How would they work that at Bhd where they want to max out the time spent in the air by their aircraft.
We are told that BA are to operate from Bhd. But hardly anything in the press re this decision. Do you not think if Ba has made a major commitment to Bhd, there would have been more in the press regarding this news? I have read nothing re the Ba decision, only a mention on here that it had been covered on UTV.
Seems to me we do not have a large enough population to support all these options, are things starting to give? Are the good days over?
TB