KLM carried something like 150k passengers in its last full year of operation on Liverpool - Amsterdam and the decision to suspend the route was taken at the height of the economic crisis. Demand, or lack of it was therefore not the prime reason in either case.
It was absolutely the prime reason; their was insufficient demand to generate sufficient revenue to sustain a profitable operation. You can harp on about how many people were carried, but it was almost exclusively people down the back on easyJet fares.
You can not blame the "economic crisis." It was not a crisis unique to Liverpool. KLM did not pull Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, hell not even Humberside, but when ever their withdrawal from LPL gets mentioned, we get reminded it was "at the height of the crisis," since when KLM have opened Belfast and have prospered there but flatly refused to return to Speke.
