Originally Posted by
EMB-145LR
Why not a bmi ERJ-135 into LCY? Three times a day should do it. Fares would be high enough to cover the extortionate costs of City.
I'd guess that to make the route profitable you'd need a 70% load factor and an
average one-way fare of (back-of-the-envelope) at least £130-150. Is that really achievable on a 3/day NQY-LCY?
Plus as EI-BUD correctly points out, bmi has no operations at either NQY or LCY. That'd add station costs which are not reflected in the fare guesstimate above. Marketing costs are also not included: bmi isn't in the London market and would be unlikely to want to spend a fortune marketing itself in London just for a NQY route. If the focus is therefore on Cornwall-originating passengers, who's going to be on the morning flight from LCY back to NQY? The route would be a very directional one.
(Of course a PSO would be an entirely different game. It will be
very interesting to see how any PSO specification deals with the choice of London airports, i.e. will the PSO pay the extra costs associated with flying to LCY, or will the PSO exclude London airport costs from its evaluation and therefore tacitly push flights to the cheapest London airport?)