CabinCrewe wrote
how do some of those Euro/German routes ever survive ? are the 30 pax paying premium fares?
The answer to your question is yes. Passenger numbers are just that, numbers. They are interesting, but they are not an indication of yield. Full service airlines are much less dependent on filling every seat on an aircraft than their low fares competitors. Their ticketing and yield management systems are much more complex too (I worked in ticketing many years ago).
Even the split between business and economy can be misleading as fully flexible, last minute economy passengers can be paying more than business class fares on the same flight.
Flybe Stuttgart must be attracting lots of last minute, flexible bookings (as it did with Maersk/Duo/Bacon.) If not I'm sure it would have faced the chop by now. However, I agree with OP that the change to the schedule for BHX-STR could be the final nail in the coffin for this flight with no long day in STR now.
Maybe BMIR with their ER4/ER3 aircraft that would be more suited to BHX-STR?
BTW OP I do love to read your route analysis!!
Daza