1/Costs - Flybes will be less than half the cost of the equivalent Cityflyer flight on the same route as the dashes sip fuel in comparison to the jets.
2/ Corporate deal market. Business is under pressure to reduce cost and if Flybe have corporate deals in place with City businesses and compete favourably on price then they will use Flybe and not BA. The frequent flyer schemes don't come into it. It's the businesses corporate travel policies that govern which carriers their employees use.
3/ IAG. Don't be under any illiusions about how fast BA would cut Cityflyer loose if they lose money. Ask any former BA Connect/Regional staff. BA/IAG cares about LHR, nowhere else. There will be no propping up of a loss making Cityflyer.
1. Costs. Think BA Cityflyer are doing just fine or they would not have grown 20% in 3 months and all paid for by IAG.
2. Corporate. Those gold cards do not just appear, they have to have some serious use to keep current and there are more gold customers per head going out of LCY now than any other airport, including LHR!
3. IAG. See point 1 and 2
!!!!!! The only loss maker at IAG is short haul at LHR.