Originally Posted by
Curious Pax
I'm always intrigued by the concept of airports not letting airlines in. If you mean achieving this by not offering any sort of discount for either promised passenger quantity or new routes then I can understand that. However has an airport (that is not overcrowded and hence slot constrained) ever told an airline they are not welcome as they don't align with the airport's business model? I find that a lot harder to believe.
Agree, airports can't put barriers up to carriers they don't want serving particular routes, but, and there is a big but, they can be less generous with sweeteners that encourage carriers to build up big bases and become dominant in their market, dissuading new entrants to come in. These same dominant carriers seem to have a belief that somehow it isn't their job to pay for facilities that they use, leaving the airport to annoy passengers with petty extra charges for things like drop off, express security, baggage trolleys. The airport can't recoup all the missing revenue from the passengers, so investment in terminal facilities suffers, and that in turn will put off full service airlines.
For my money, although BHX, and to a lesser extent, MAN got a lot of stick for not piling in with the big "low cost" airlines early enough, they have played a better long game by ensuring their legacy carriers offering connection via European, and Mid. East hubs were looked after before enticing the cheap end of the market. The result is that they have a better mix of business and leisure carriers and routes.
Frightening potential problem could loom, as Ryanair concentrate more on primary airports. What would happen were they to transfer more business away from EMA towards BHX? A prospect, perhaps not so remote, that doesn't really bear thinking about.