"The fact Cork-Stansted has gone thrice daily from the end of Oct with no agreement is testament to that."
Well that would suggest they are building on a profitable, successful route, or one that may have more potential.
It is not however, proof that routes that were axed, were profitable at all.
"You asked me where the routes profitable"
I didn't actually, I asked you, how do you know for certain the routes were profitable.
Sorry but, how long has Stansted been around? It's been always successful, its growth inhibited by FR to put pressure on the CAA.
You're half reading my posts now and this is where it starts getting annoying, my point was they wanted to grow the operation, thrice daily Stansted was part of the proposed deal (which I am not going to state on here) - the CAA said no to that deal, FR responded by cutting the profitable routes. They then due to demand added the thrice daily STN service with no discount as they were seeking.
The KRK route was the top performing ''EU city-route'' for Ryanair from Cork in Summer 2013, that's a fact, you don't want to believe that well then that's your own issue. It was always sold to near capacity, and was very high yielding - This was due to the fact FR had forced W6 out (thus the 4 weekly Katowice link was gone) replaced with a twice weekly KRK service ramping up the demand/yield for that route. It proved very successful, even when W6 were operating to nearby Katowice it was there best ORK route.
I know for certain the routes were profitable because that's what was stated during the meetings, if you think I'm going to provide you with the minutes of those discussions your, well, mistaken. FR's routes to KRK, WMI, VNO were profitable, they were money makers for W6 who actually prior to August 2012 before FR arrived on the scene, 10 years late, had plans to enter Romania from Cork - At that time there was one connection from DUB to OTP with EI, and no doubt W6 would have gained a significant catchment for the proposed OTP link. Those plans were scuppered, as was their successful portfolio at Cork - For godsake, W6 on one occasion operated four weekly between Cork and Gdansk when the only other link in the country from DUB to GDN could sustain thrice weekly with FR, W6 were actually drawing passengers from FR's DUB services.
Finally this is not a question of the routes being unprofitable as you are seeking to claim, this is a fact that SNN's growth is at the expense of ORK routes and EIR's stable business portfolio at Shannon. That is not growth, that is a predatory form of competition which seeks to eliminate the other players from entering the market and have a controlling say over both airports. That's Cork's dilemma, if EI want to grow and they do they're faced with, well if we launch ORK-FRA, more than likely FR will cut fares between KIR-HHN, add DUB-HHN to undercut our DUB-FRA route thus seeing us lasting one year before limiting the damage. And that's the issue, it happens in cycles. So while you hear the mantra from uneducated TD's about how FR is great for Shannon it is actually anything but and indeed in a few years, for the unteempth time in Shannon's history see that again.
What Cork want's is FR services to untapped markets, where the CAA will offer support/discounts but why should the CAA be expected to give unfair competitive advantage to carriers to gain growth?
A point of note though, ORK-EMA will also be withdrawn by FR that route was unprofitable, glad to say EIR beat FR on the BHX services.