I mean when BFS had flights to the States the airline was a Lo-Co and was
loss-making.
Jack, do you mean flight to Canada with Zoom? Sadly, since Zoom folded no airline will fill the void left by them. Nobody really knows that the particular stats for this individual route/routes. Ulster has huge linkage with Canada and Toronto has been on the map for decades at times by Air Canada, mainly charter flights by many airlines. On a suitable frequency with appropriate marketing this route could be sustainable.
Of course Aer Lingus if you refer to them as LOCO at that time of operating BFS SNN JFK, that was doomed from the word go due to Aer Lingus's need to touch down at SNN enroute, them being an Irish airline and all.
As far as I am concerned, the reduction in APD is a token gesture, sends a good message out. Passengers checking prices talk more about the APD than they do on the actual air fare, and given the very limited capacity, if seats book up the prices go up, so few passengers actually seeing a net saving, that would be my interpretation. Dublin having so much more capacity will tend to have more low priced seats as with up to 16 daily departures, often will be far more availability. In my view reduced APD is publicity message. If BFS could get additional flights on US routes by way of lower APD, then it could be heralded a success....
Don't Discover Northern Ireland do the same in the US?
Do Discover NI actually market NI the States, my understanding was that NI assembly pay Tourism Ireland £4M per year to jointly market NI and ROI? Given that so many passengers come to the Island and to NI by way of Dublin, the sheer amount of tourists in ROI registered cars tells that tale there! hence the rationale....
EI-BUD