I may be unduly pessimistic but the loss of the Brussels connection (used it several times myself, including once a Metro!) is something I have been predicting ever since the arrival of Emirates and their daily widebody. Or more precisely, the potential loss of all NCL’s connectivity into the networks.
Emirates are carrying – what? – 200 a day in each direction (I’m looking at the December figures. How many of these do you think are NCL/DXB O&D? At a guess I would say fifteen, max 30 a day. Which means that all the rest are being diverted from BA/LHR. AF/PAR. KL/AMS or SN/BRU. These feeder services are at very best marginally profitable, right now are probably quite heavily loss-making. Those transfer pax onto the longhauls (in the case of SN, Africa) are the lifeblood of the NCL route.
Consider this: with the EU emissions trading scheme extended to air transport, every airline has a bunch of credits, insufficient to their needs, which need to be allocated across their networks. Along with all their other worries (sky-high fuel prices, weak markets) thay are going to be asking themselves – are those scarce credits worth using on an already shaky regional link, or could they be better used elsewhere?
I spent a large chunk of my teenage years at Woolsington and I have always closely followed its route development. I was delighted when the foreign flag carriers began to include NCL in their networks – until EK. Theirs is a highly distortive business model and I fear the worst.