Well if its the inaugural, that means that there are only outbound passengers on the flight (ie no-one returning to GCI) so it makes sense that the flight is only half full .

And it's also a Sunday so not likely to have many business travellers

From looking at the GÇI webcam, the LHR-GCI flight had on the top side of 30 passengers.

May just be a glitch but whilst trying to book a flight at the end of July I notice the GCI-BHX timings change back to more traditional times for the afternoon flight so I'm wondering if the aircraft to operate the Heathrow route will be coming into the island from elsewhere as we move further into the summer schedule

People do actually fly to GCI that live elsewhere you know, If you apply your logic BA would only carry outbound UK citizens on their flights from LHR!

I don't think that we can read too much into the pax loads, yet. It is still early days. But, maybe Heathrow is not quite as popular nowadays to the Guernsey traveller as it used to be. Certainly, Jersey politicians are wary of the possible repercussions on the Gatwick service of having a Heathrow route. More concerning is the revelation that BEE are only" baby sitting" these slots at Heathrow (on behalf of Delta/Virgin). The likelihood is that . as soon as the parent airline wants to use them for their flights, Guernsey will lose them - & bye bye Heathrow. & the States £850k !
As I said before, you couldn't make all of this up !

If the politicians in the Isle of Man are telling the truth (and that can't be taken as read!), the IOM is not paying FlyBe anything for the equivalent LHR service, which should also cause some questions to be asked in Guernsey!

It is all in Guernseys desperation to try an attract more tourists. Not only are the timings pretty rubbish in the grand scheme of things once you have all your baggage paid for there is very little in it as opposed to flying via Gatwick. It will become a total farce when Fog hits the Islands or LHR, it will be the first route to get the chop being classed as domestic!!!

Sorry to say this is just a white Elephant that will disappear at the end of the summer season and the only people out of pocket will be the Guernsey Government!!

What are the loads like?

I have it on very good authority that IOM have not contributed anything other than the airport discounts normally attracted by new routes. It will be interesting to see what happens as we get nearer the winter and Virgin/Delta decide what slots they need to use and what need to be "sat on" for longer, I guess if only one pair need sat on, then they will go to the highest (or only) bidder. With LHR slots achieving sale prices in the tens of millions, there surely cannot be a long term future for single daily (or any other frequency) services between LHR and the IOM or GCI, other than where they are increasingly subsidised.

I seem to remember that after the Air UK drama there wwas talk whether Guernsey - instead of an airline - could own slots at LHR in order to safeguard them from getting sold off by a greedy airline,

And the answer was no I seem to recall, which is why the Guernsey government purchased an airline.

Behind the populist rhetoric of a 'political class' (a silly enough idea in the UK and a frankly ludicrous one in Guernsey), I think you'll find that most of the members who want a longer runway weren't even on the States in 2003. Economic Development are adamant that they offered the route to Aurigny and the Flybe offer was 'cheaper and more resilient'. Like you I think subsidising a competitor - especially to the tune of ~£66 a seat when you include lost revenue for Aurigny - but it's worth reading the statement.

Only the remaining 195's are going.