NYC
Continental operated BRS-EWR from May 2005 until November 2010 with B 757 aircraft. The flights were daily except November-March when they varied from 5 down to 2 x weekly at various times in the winter. It has to be remembered that at that time CO had no access to LHR (their London flights operated from LGW) and so may not have even started a BRS route at all if they had possessed LHR rights in 2005.
The first year actually exceeded CO's publicly stated target of 80,000 passengers for the initial 12 months, and the the calendar years of 2007 and 2008 saw annual passenger totals over 90,000. In terms of load factors the months June-October each year were invariably the best, with monthly lfs approaching 90% not uncommon in the peak summer months.
Of course, that only tells one side of the story and we don't know the yields; it seems from CO's remarks when they axed the route that the 16-seat business-first cabin was not well patronised, at least at full prices.
As the recession began to bite in 2009 annual passenger totals dropped to 83,000, partly due to a bigger monthly rotation reduction in the winter months, but by then CO had gained access to LHR and promptly axed its LGW route.
With the recession and access to one of the world's largest airports 100 miles away it seemed to me that the writing was on the wall for the BRS route, and so it proved. In early 2010 CO announced the closure of the route from early November that year and in effect the BRS B757 was moved 100 miles east to become the fifth daily EWR rotation from LHR.
Paradoxically, the loads in that final summer of 2010 improved significantly on the same period the previous year with September, for example, seeing a monthly load factor of 88%.
The loss of NCL's NYC connection linked with that at BRS a few years ago (although specific circumstances contrived to come together to halt this one) won't make it any easier for smaller regional airports to get themselves a regular NYC service. The mood noises from the BRS management seem less optimistic than they were a year or two ago when it appeared that the return of NYC was imminent.
In 2007 an aviation analyst company produced a paper for the Wales Government for a Cardiff-New York route based on a daily year-round service with, it appeared, one-class aircraft. They thought that the first three years of such a route would require an an annual subsidy of £600,000 after which the route should be self-sustaining and profitable. Their detailed projected passenger figures produced average loads once the route was worked up almost identical to the ones at BRS that CO found (in the end) unsatisfactory. On that basis the theory and the reality seem unrelated.