Originally Posted by
shamrock7seal
Will this affect BOH negatively?
The most likely immediate effect will be a further long delay to a London runway decision. Because BOH has a decent runway, parking stands and most importantly peak period runway slots available, within of 2 hours of London, this is likely to underpin BOH traffic and would have driven growth. Now growth forecasting is much more opaque. Nobody knows!
A softening of travel demand is expected countrywide, as reported by IATA and others. So it is now reasonable to expect no new routes at BOH for some time. The maintenance of existing routes will be subject to demand. Which for BOH holiday routes should be OK, although Turkey will suffer from yesterday's attack at IST.
The weakness of airline shares and impact to profitability is also significant. On the south coast, this is particularly relevant for Flybe, who despite low fuel costs and high the demand reported by IAG, EZY and RYR, have not yet translated that into anything much more than a break even business. The RYR announcement of no new aircraft allocated to UK is an unambiguous statement that applies to all UK airports.
I would expect Flybe to shrink their operation from SOU a little next year, in my view, anything that competes with Ryanair, will be at risk.
Finally BOH and SOU will continue to see increased use by diverted aircraft, due to lack of runway resilience especially at the very busy Gatwick. And an increased use by Corporate Jets who are less and less able to use any London airports.
FF