Originally Posted by
Fairdealfrank
(2) a domestic route to/from LHR, say 3-4 flights/day each way.
No, not for a typical regional population. Leisure travellers rarely want to pay the fares needed to access a hub just to visit the associated capital city. It's cheaper to take the bus/train and they've got time to spare. There are rarely enough business travellers to justify that level of connection on an aircraft with more than 19 seats which is why so many routes have traditionally been PSO.
For commuter shuttle services and long-haul trips, both types of traveller will make terrestrial arrangements to get themselves to the hub that offers the best combination of departure time and price for their needs and no troubled regional airport will ever be able to compete with that.
Where they
can compete, is in providing their local market with (much) less frequent but more direct routes to places that have a particular signficance for that audience, as well as offering a range of unique services that the security concerns of a million passengers per annum just don't allow at a bigger facility; and in between times, recover some of that "retro" attraction and educate people to expect more from their local airport and airline. Steve Jobs did it for electronic gadgets; there's no reason why it can't be done in aviation.