All well and good but I would like to think that in parallel they will attempt to upgrade the passenger experience which is, at times, awful.
They do a lot of flying to the Caribbean (9 or 10 routes out of MAN to this region???) and miss out on a lot of the premium traffic that heads that way because they seem totally incapable of understanding what a premium offering is. There are people out there who are prepared to pay for the right product. I know a number of people who live within 30 minutes drive of MAN and prefer to get a taxi to LGW to go with Virgin or BA.
That is a hell of an indictment on what TCX offer.
I did a Caribbean trip myself with them over the Christmas period and bought what was described as Premium Economy. It was really poor, the aircraft interior looked shabby, the seat was old, battered and dirty and the IFE ancient - mine didn't even work.
The return flight was half way over the Atlantic before the pre-paid food arrived - I mean who wants to eat an 'evening meal' at '2.30am'. And we are supposed to believe that we are getting gourmet food crafted by James Martin? Think 1980s plastic tray, incinerated by microwave fare. The food arrived late because they were pratting around selling lotto tickets and the like - I started to envy my acquaintances' taxi ride at this point. Eastbound Atlantic = food, drink, lights out, sleep, breakfast, land, all accomplished as soon and as efficiently as possible.
I truly wish them all the best and I think they have a lot of potential.
They are trying some bold moves which deserve a bit of luck, but they can make their own luck by working much harder on the passenger experience.