Originally Posted by
Rivet Joint
Sorry but scheduled flying at SEN is not a long term viable business. It is pretty obvious that Stobart have made it part of the deal to sell but it does seem odd that WX would accept.
I don't see why CityJet would be so desperate to get their hands on Stobart Air that they'd agree to anything they weren't happy with.
It's in the nature of an airline's business to accept deals and to then try and make them work; just look at some of the sheds Ryanair fly to! Castellon may indeed very well work for them, but I doubt they were beating away other airlines queuing at the door to get in!
There will be rational reasons why people would want to fly to or from SEN, and in any case not everyone is rational (particularly in respect of when they're arriving at a destination they don't know so well). One thing particularly in its favour is that geography makes it much more difficult to charge rip off train fares than it is at Heathrow or Stansted, and the service pattern makes it much harder to do so than it is at Gatwick
I always remember the many years London City Airport tried to find it's niche and appeared to be failing. Maybe SEN could turn into more of a Sheffield City or a Prestwick than a London City or Doncaster Sheffield, but I'd like to think something that close to a city like London and with a direct rail link will never fail completely.
Will CityJet be the airline that finds out how to make it work? Maybe; they might have the right kind of plane and a need to find things to do with it. Or maybe not; they have a risky new plane that could become a reputational disaster zone through nobody's fault and a bad track record with marketing. If they're not the ones that make it work then I think they will perform the role that AB helped perform for the locos; helping other people see how it actually needs to be done.