CAA April stats
After quite a delay they are finally out.
Total passengers are down 0.5%, hopefully the summer months will be strong enough to prevent another year on year decline in passenger numbers. I suspect the decrease came almost entirely from the significant reduction in the 'sun' routes during this month as everything else seem to be fairly stagnant or growing according to the stats.
BMI Regional carried 771 passengers to Munich, which works out to be an average of 16 passengers per flight, for a 33% load factor based on there being 3 cancelled flights due to ATC strikes (there may have been more). Some flights were also operated by an E135 (37 seats) rather than the E145 (49 seats) my calculation is based off so the actual percentage will be a little higher. It isn't an awful start, but hopefully the route will have grown to more sustainable loads in more recent months, especially with the competition from Flybe they have now.
Dusseldorf has improved, averaging 38 passengers for a load factor of 49.5%. Finally Cork did well for such a 'new' route averaging 40 passengers per flight, meaning a load factor of 55%.