I commented on this back at the start of March. I think we are now starting to see the impact of a dominant force, Easyjet. Looking at Saturday 15th Nov, last flight back here from Lgw is 4.15pm, Ltn is 6.05pm and Stn, 4.30pm. I think they have only 5 flights out of Bfs to London area on a Saturday. So for a football fan, these times are useless and a lot of people would like to fly over for a match on a Saturday as a day return. Whilst I understand that demand is lower on a saturday, I do not believe that there is not demand out of one London airport for a say 8.00pm departure by Easy. Last back from Lgw on EI is 6.00pm, also of no use. They have one back from Lhr to Bhd at 7.45pm. BA, 6.20pm. So only one flight out of London that would allow a day return to London for any reason over three airlines, but I think this is a very poor show from Easy. Why is this happening? I think the dominant force might deter other operators, like Norwegian. BA are only interested in Lhr and not too concerned about 8.00pm on a Saturday evening. EI are limited by the amount of metal they commit here and also lack of slots at both airports that they might allocate to NI. So I see Easy limiting flights to drive up yield and being able to do it because they have little effective competition. Maybe it is time to try and get FR back, never thought I would be saying that! But on my flight last month from Stn to Dublin at 8.00pm, it was full and some of the pax were travelling back to belfast.
TB