Whilst Flybe may have been at LCY before which remains an airport with a heavy business market, there has been a significant amount of investment and development in east London which must have swelled the potential market. There also seems to be less choice for passengers than was the case 14yrs ago when you could get to various London airports on domestic flights from the regions - when they operated BHDLCY before, they were also operating to LGW and STN multiple times daily. Now, from BHD the options are only LGW or LHR unless you want to go to BFS.
Would be interesting to know the difference in the number of seats available on London (all airports) to Belfast, Edinburgh, full city pairs to see if the number has reduced. I can't help but think that whilst the number of seats may not have changed much the average aircraft size probably has and therefore there is likely to be less choice available now.
Flybe will also be able to be more competitive on price that BA (read that as 'they will lose less if there is a bloodbath due to significantly lower operating costs') and I think that Flybe have a good shot of making LCY work this time around. Flybe know how much the EJets cost to operate so they'll have a good idea on how Cityflyer will be fairing.
I'm not sure if all the routes will fair the same and it's quite possible that frequencies etc may by reconsidered but I would say that Cityjet are the ones with the most shallow pockets with which to fight over the coming months.
It will certainly be interesting to see....anyone have any idea on the passenger load that Flybe is currently achieving on EDILCY during the 'soft launch' period 06th - 25th October?
Last edited by JobsaGoodun; 18th Oct 2014 at 10:14.