Aer Ryan,
Firstly, I suggest it is remiss of you to call this a useless charter. It is excellent
PR and again firmly putting NOC firmly on the map. Ok there is no link on this route but it is worthy of
PR. Reinforces for me that Knock Airport has far exceeded almost all observers predictions. Even over the last five years the airport has went from strength to strength. The numbers are impressive in terms of visitors.
It is a honestly useless charter, I cant see much benefit except the small few Americans it will bring through the doors of Knock.
I cannot see any airline thinking "Oh, look, an airline is operating a return service to Knock from New York in august, there must be a Major market here!" I cannot see much of a
PR value here.
Aer Lingus yesterday operated a charter into Belfast-International (Who is currently suing Aer Lingus) for the Ulster match in Tolon. Why did they do it? Because the payment was good enough. No other reason. Any commercial business will operate somewhere if they are paid enough to do so. I have no doubt they are being well paid to do this Knock charter.
Sure Knock has done great on European routes, Transatlantic routes are completely different. Very few Americans like landing into the absolute middle of nowhere an hour away from any city and a while away from any notable town, with a horrible road network around. Sure its great for the locals, but I cannot see the T/A tourism worth.
Another point is that airlines want to protect their routes from Shannon and Dublin already. Even if they can make a profit at knock, would it lower their profits at dublin and shannon by an extent that its not worth the movement of an aircraft?
I hate to rain on your parade, but a service from knock is unlikely in the foreseeable future. But I would let a weekly service off the agenda.
In terms of your commentary about the ' market' having most of its seats filled before it reached Knock, where is the data to support this? The debate and discussion on the time said something different. Flyglobespan recognised the opportunities that existed ex the west of Ireland, sadly their demise was untimely.
EI-BUD
I have read figures that 67% of the Flyglopespan loads came from Liverpool/Glasgow and the others came form Knock.
Flyglopespan recognised that there was no way they could fill all the seats in Liverpool and Glasgow, but they couldn't route the network via Dublin and Shannon as JFK and BOS are already full markets there, so Knock was the next best thing. There is defiantly a market there, but is it sufficient for a non-stop service?
Also I wouldn't rule out that when FR do eventually decide to do TA Ireland to East coast US will be logical. SNN and NOC would be logical points for FR to operate from.. Plus could be done on 737.
Ryanair will never EPTOS test their 737's so you will not see a 737 service. What ever aircraft they use, it will be likely that they are too big for the Knock market and even Shannon. The only reason they would target Shannon is to get rid of the competition there.