Originally Posted by
M-JCS
Potential investors in start-up airlines see this kind of behaviour and are scared away. The biggest problem, apart from denying start-ups investment, is that growth in the industry is not evenly distributed across markets. Bigger and bigger aircraft need big airports, and regional airports feel the brunt. But without investment income, how are start-ups, and indeed regional airports, to redress this market inefficiency?
Regional airport populations also need to have realistic expectations, in particular to recognise that their local facility cannot ever sustain the kind of traffic that interests a LoCo service. Even with current fuel prices, air travel can offer advantages over road/rail transport for an equivalent price - especially if the rail service is being "rationalised" as it is here in France - but so many supporters' groups seem to think that adding a few hundred metres to a short-ish runway so that it can accommodate a B737 or A320 will magically generate demand.
As far as investment is concerned, there is a simple solution (perhaps coming soon to a regional airport/airline near you ... ) but it requires someone to prick the aviation industry's "because we're worth it" bubble, and there are very few people within the industry who are ready to give up their debt-dependency in favour of a radically different business model. The various regulatory and tax authorities could help by recognising the value of niche operations and, for example, exonerating <50 seat flights from APD, but I can't see that happening any time soon, so it means AOC-holders need to work more imaginatively with private third-party enterprise.