Shamrock7seal, Mrshubigbus, SWBKCB
This list of failures at BOH is staggering. I don't think any airport in the UK has a list this long:
Euro Direct 1994 was a disaster - 18 seat J31's flying to AMS and then massive expansion to 4 daily flights BOH-AMS with 64 seat ATP's. The writing was on the wall.
Air Berlin - BOH-PAD. Hardly a useful or necessary route. No wonder they stopped.
Jet2 2005 - daily flights to BFS. Again, too much capacity and no one had heard of Jet2 down here.
WIZZ 2007 - Not sure why this one didn't work? They operated one route at the same time as easyJet was testing the BOH market. Not good as both airlines failed.
EasyJet - Tried Krakow and Grenoble (Krakow same time as WIZZ so demand would have been split between two airlines - wrong move) Also tried GNB which failed. GVA has been a success although frequency has declined slightly over the 10 years it has operated. But these two 'test' destinations are hardly ground breaking. They should have tried Barcelona, Nice, Rome for example.
Flybe 2015 (Previous Jersey European which last operated from BOH in 1993 and as Flybe to MAN single daily in 2010) - a mess and obviously everyone agrees they had no intention of operating a long-term sustainable base at BOH. They were leveraging their once biggest base at SOU from a cost perspective. Using BOH.
Ryanair - yield is the biggest issue at BOH. At one time they operated 4 daily flights to Scotland alone - fantastic load factors but everyone paying 20 quid. Many routes discontinued including Wroclaw, Katowice, Shannon, Madrid, Nantes, Carcasonne, Pisa, Ibiza, Reus, Chania, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh Frankfurt Hahn, and many more.
Aurigny daily services to JER and GCI in 2004 - failure caused by high fares and lack of frequency compared to SOU.
BMIbaby - 3 flights a week to JER will not compete with 6 daily from SOU at similar pricing.
Aer Lingus - failure caused by high fares and lack of frequency compared to 3 daily at SOU.
BUZZ - bought by Ryanair and closed BOH base before started operating.
Flyglobespan - sold BOH-EDI but stopped before started flying.
Euroscot express - did OK with 1-11's to Scptland then lost it when they deployed ATR-72's with high fares, low frequency and slow aircraft when compared with SOU. Gill Air took over when Euroscot when under and flopped within months.
Thomsonfly 2005 - couldn't cut it with 2 737's flying to AMS, CDG, PRG etc etc although the change in business model at the company may have contributed to the cuts rather than BOH demand per se.
I very much doubt any airline will consider BOH now. How can the management team explain the lack of sustainability???
The ONLY solution for BOH is to negotiate with incumbents Thomson, Ryanair and easyJet to base more aircraft and try to make the best out of the volume of passengers. This is the ONLY effective way to compete with SOU and enlarge the BOH catchment (the low fares offer a much wider appeal). MONARCH would be a target from a brand fit with BOH catchment. If they are brave and get a good incentive.
Did I miss any airlines???