I do apologise if you think I'm being arrogant, it wasn't my intention.
GrahamK, Eastern actually operated a 4 daily service with a wet leased Dornier 328. They were brand new to London City, charge extortionate fares and were pushed out of LCY by the increasing costs for smaller aircraft, which has subsequently pushed out almost all of the smaller aircraft that used to operate from there. It was a very expensive setup from the start and it would have required a lot of people paying the high fares to keep it going.
In the case of Newcastle, you're more likely to fill 98 seats on an E190 at £60-120 than 30-odd seats on a Dornier at £300+ and probably make a bigger profit
VentureGo, I agree, KLM didn't reduce service when EZY came on and EZY/AF survived nicely together for years. Your comment about leisure, interestingly, when I've looked LCY can sometimes be the cheaper option. Huge amounts of capacity have been lost on the London route and I really do wish we had a second option, even if it was another BA flight to a different airport