I think I've understood Gatwick's conditions of use 2013/2014 charges document correctly. It looks as if that take-off+landing+passenger handling during summer peak hours for an in-and-out of Gatwick comes to a minimum of about £1,725 or £1,770 for 30 pax. Divide by 30 pax on a almost-full Do328, and you get £59 in charges per pax for accessing Gatwick.
Newquay will want an extra £24 per passenger for an aircraft with 30 pax, APD adds a further £26 and the development fee is another £5
Total for airport charges + APD for a NQY-LGW-NQY round trip in summer = £114
This is of course before we think about fuel, labour, aircraft maintenance, navigation charges, etc...
On an aircraft with 30 pax, if Flybe are to make a reasonable profit, difficult to do a daytrip NQY-LGW-NQY in summer for much less than about £200 per head.
Move from a Do328 with 30 pax to a Q400 with 60 pax, and the various airport charges drops by about £50 per person to about £64 per head. Assuming a Q400 costs less per passenger than a Do328, this presumably permits an entry-level day return to be priced at maybe £110 per head.
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 3rd Dec 2013 at 03:11.