DB 6 wrote; Personally I would like to see the BHX route restarted, together with maybe Dublin or Belfast again. Towards the end the BHX route was seeing high pax numbers and seemed viable. Big problem was always publicity, nobody outside Dundee seemed to know it existed.
Load factors don't give any indication of profitability. It's easy to fill all the seats if the fares are sufficiently discounted. If Loganair couldn't make a profit on these routes before, what has changed that would make them, or any other operator, want to try again?
I don't doubt that flying from Dundee Airport is much more convenient than having to travel to Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen but does this convenience for a tiny number of people justify the enormous public subsidy?
According to an article in the Courier last March, (
Fears over Dundee Airport?s future after further passenger decline - Dundee / Local / News / The Courier ) Dundee airport attracts fewer passengers than Benbecula. In February 2013 Dundee had an average of 71.5 passengers per day. Assuming that these are evenly spread between arrivals and departures then, on average, 35.75 passengers arrived each day and 35.75 departed. If the £2.7m subsidy is spread evenly across the year then these passengers are being subsidised by £104 per sector / £208 per return despite paying, according to the Courier, £400 per return (NB. fares can be as high as £613 return and as low as £149). Even at £400 return (which excludes the subsidy), the airline is not making enough money so, one year on, they are withdrawing the service. What price would the fares need to be for the operation to be self sustaining without subsidy? £700 return? £800 return? And, if so, how many would be prepared to pay this?
Given a choice of much cheaper fares and very frequent services to a choice of five airports in London from Edinburgh / Aberdeen, or much higher fares and low frequency from Dundee to LCY, the vast majority of Dundonians have clearly favoured flying from elsewhere rather than from Dundee.
For commercial services from Dundee airport to have succeeded, sufficient people within the catchment area needed to have used the services that were introduced, at the time that they were introduced, and they needed to be prepared to pay fares that allowed the operators to turn in a profit. Despite massive subsidies towards the costs of running the airport, Dundonians weren't prepared to do this so they lost some routes and had the frequency to LCY reduced. Public subsidy and public service obligations are not a long term solution to a fundamental and demonstrable preference on the part of Dundonians to use other airports because of better choice, better frequencies and lower fares.
When Edinburgh Gateway station opens it will be possible to reach Edinburgh Airport by rail then tram from Dundee in about 1 hour 15 minutes which is about the same amount of time as it takes to reach Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted from many parts of central London. At present, it takes about 1 hour 45 by train / bus or just over an hour by car from Dundee to Edinburgh Airport. By international standards this is not an unreasonable or untypical journey time to and from an airport. Why should he public purse subsidise an average of 35.75 departing passengers per day to the tune of £208 per return flight when the alternative of flying from Edinburgh is just over an hour's drive away?