Actually I hadnt. I was reading some old news item about Stornoway had been having discussions with Ryanair about services to the med and I think Stanstead.
Got me thinking that althouh not huge it must make a normal trip to the costas or anywhere beyond Glasgow very expensive.
Ditto The Northern Isles. Surely there must be a market for low cost carriers to find a way to go to these places.
There is after all a reasobable population up there.
So it wasnt imho a daft question.

FR at SYY
 

Aren't routes to/from the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetlands operated under a "public service obligation" arrangement precisely because they are vital services but commercially loss-making without the support from the government?

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/...-_feb_2013.pdf

List of EU and Other PSO routes.

Why do RYR not serve Channel Islands?

Short answer: GCI is out - runway too short; JER's runway is a little shorter than desired, but FR did look into JER a few years back, but JER authorities would not bend over as far FR wanted them to and in the end, no deal. I think JER recognised that FR would probably chase away all of the other carriers.

By the way, a little heads up: Channel 4's Dispatches will be broadcasting a programme next Monday on FR's fuel policies ... ad included some excerpts of interviews purporting to be with pilots ... cue injunction threats by FR's lawyers (all no doubt adding to publicity) - should be interesting to watch, even before the programme ...

Ryr did indeed push to start services from Stornoway.
I think
Stanstead
Alicante
Malaga
Pama
And I think a couple of other random destinations.
Seemingly landing fees were 9.00 per passenger.
Contry to the sly comments there is clearly scope there for something like this.
It would be ideal for tourism as well.
Perhaps easyjet would be a better fit. They could run servives to manchester with all its onward connections. Or hell flybe could do this.
The whole west coast and irelands northern and western are hard to reach.
The cost of a Soanish holiday for an islander would currenly be astronomical adding in the internal flight to.abz or edi and gla.
Seems strange that there vare no charters to the rest of the uk and Eu from these places

I take it you meant Stansted and Palma! and NOT Stanstead and Pama?

Onyx - please try to focus your thoughts on the population size of the Outer Hebrides - Stornoway has 9,000 people and the island group as a whole has a population of 26,000 - the island group has a population of no more than a small UK town. It already has direct flights to Edinburgh and Glasgow with all the associated onward connections.

Non stop flights from the Scottish islands to the Mediterranean really are very small markets.

A weekly flight on a 737-800 needs at least 150 people each week or over 5,000 people travelling each way over a summer season on each specific route to have a hope in hell of profitability - Stornoway cannot possibly provide that level of traffic given its population.

SSK - I don't know much about Molde but Harstad-Narvik airport seems to be the primary airport in a region with a local catchment of over 100,000 people, over 4 times that of Stornoway airport

Norwegian manage to operate southern sun destinations from a whole range of pretty small places up the coastline e.g. Molde with a population of 26,000, Narvik/Harstad with a combined population about the same.

Ryanair July Traffic Grows 120,000 (+1%)

Passenger numbers for July grew by 1% or 120,000

Easyjet passenger numbers grew by 2% or 116,000

Total combined increase of 236,000 passengers

Good returns in any month BUT in 2012

Ryanair grew by 645,000 passengers and Easyjet by 433,000

Total combined increase of 1,078,000

Of course you cannot expect to continue add on passenger numbers like before BUT kind of surprised that SLF growth for both combined has dropped so considerably or are both holding back on pax growth in favour of profitability or is recession showing itself on growth.

Difference is how many extra aircraft did FR last month compared to 2012. EZY wouldn't of added anything to their fleet and if i'm right about EZY fleet not changing then EZY had a much stronger month than FR.

Good point

FR 294 to 303 + 3% / 941 PAX per aircraft per day
U2 209 to 211 + 1% / 913 PAX per aircraft per day

Point wasn't about the fleet size but the growth or reduced growth in pax numbers by both which seems to have plateaued.

Fleet size / length of route etc also impact but is this the reason for low growth or is it recession.

Think its probably fleet size.

Ryanair Whistleblowers
 

UK TV Channel 4 Monday August 12th 1930. 'Secrets from the Cockpit'.
Concerns about passenger safety. May be interesting.

Media
 

I will watch it with the expectation of a slick high paced edited version of poorly researched and badly reported overly sensationalist partially completed facts
And heavy on inuendo. Program's like this just fail to resist the tempt ion to be
Sensational and exclusive rather than factual , maybe I am wrong but every airline suffers when these program's are aired ....

I certainly will not watch it for the reasons Hanger6 mentions.

Ryanair on telly!
 

If you're interested.

Dispatches - Channel 4

I think this may be at least the second attempt by that British Tabloid Channel (the TV equivalent of the DM) to discredit Ryanair. If it's anything like the last one it'll be rubbish. If the pilots are actually "serving Ryanair Pilots" makes you wonder why they are still "serving" if they think things are not right. You'd imagine they'd have moved on to save their own skins if their lives and those of their passengers are in danger.

Breach of freedom of speech- Ryanair (surprise!)
 

First of all I challenge Pprune to respect my rights to freedom of speech above their own profits!

Ryanair have once again used bullying tactics to get their own way. Both Facebook and Tw*tt*r pages for the democratically elected 'Ryanair Pilot Group' have been removed by aforementioned companies, with no reason given. This is an outrageous infringement on freedom of speech.

Guys/girls, please show your solidarity with RPG. Your future also depends on it.

:ok:

Wonder what they have to hide?

737 Jockey,

Think you mean T*witt*r & Facebook.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, if pprune close this thread it will merely serve to confirm that they are a bunch of profiteers, rather than a pilots website.

No reason to close the thread, we are merely stating facts, and indeed facts that Ryanair have brought about themselves.

This latest stunt smacks of desperation, and I hope the "troops" see it as a legs-up that they have em runnin scared. :D

Edited to say, if I type Tw***er it becomes pprune. . . . more pprune censorship, lets see , if I type it again without the stars what appears, here goes twitter (strange that, I typed t-----r )