FRatSTN - why the outrage ?
Stansted is owned and managed by a private company. Easyjet is also a private company. There is no obligation on either airport or airline for particular routes to be served at any level of frequency. Both BAA (and whoever buys STN) and Easyjet exist to make the greatest return for shareholders.
If there are more people willing to pay more money to fly between other cities, then Easyjet are probably achieving a social good by fulfilling that need. Ryanair play exactly the same game
As an example, to Barcelona, exlcuding the Easyjet daily route to Stansted:
From East Midlands, Ryanair fly daily
From Birmingham, Monarch fly 4x per week
From Southend, Easyjet fly daily
From Stansted, Ryanair fly 2x daily
From London City, BA fly daily
From Luton, Easyjet fly daily
From Gatwick, Monarch fly 10x per week, Easyjet fly 6x daily
From Heathrow, BA fly 9x daily
From Leeds, Ryanair fly 3x per week, Jet2 fly 5x per week
Total excluding Easyjet from STN = 24 flights per day to Barcelona or about 3,600 seats per day, ignoring airports which do not overlap with Stansted's catchment area. If another EU airline wants to fly between Stansted and Barcelona, or Ryanair wish to increase the frequency, there's relatively little stopping them from doing so - i.e. barriers to entry are low.
Given the above, it seems like people living in Stansted's catchment area have plenty of choice about how to travel to Barcelona, likely leading to competitive prices and on some routes, less than brilliant profit margins.
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 11th Oct 2012 at 18:55.