I don't think there is, to be honest. I, and everyone else that I can see, is giving their perspective on where there might be gaps, along with the reasons why they might not be filled.

Agreed. How can we bring politics into the discussion now 😀

Well certainly some 'flights of fantasy'.

I'd like to see Lufthansa increase it's frequency. Once per day misses the opportunity for connections so no competition to BA/KL etc

Which of the examples I or anyone else have come up with would you describe as a 'flight of fantasy'?

India, Africa and China? To a lesser extent, presently scheduled USA.

I think it might be enlightening to take a look at the visitbritain/ONS stats, which are available here:

https://www.visitbritain.org/researc...trends-uk-town

....especially the "Detailed towns data 2009-2022" excel spreadsheet:

https://www.visitbritain.org/media/2...oad?attachment

For instance, if we look at the "top towns" sheet and filter for US visitors, we see that pretty consistently the 3rd most popular destination in the UK for Americans after London and Edinburgh is.....Glasgow (and not Stratford upon Avon, which is down in about 50th place! ). Yet, despite this, since covid, GLA has lost all its scheduled US flights and routes and has so far struggled to get them replaced or reinstated. So the question arises as to how NCL can expect to attract and retain regular scheduled US routes when Glasgow, a city that demonstrably has multiple times more inbound US demand, can't?

The numbers for places like China and India are similarly relatively low and illustrate that there are probably a 1 or 2 other UK airports that are going to be ahead of NCL in the queue for these type of routes.

Of course, inbound demand is only half the equation, but it's nevertheless a major consideration for airlines.

nef,

Facinating data sets, thanks for linking them.

There's a lot to take in but I think the visits data refers to overnight stays as oposed to day trips (excursions) so large cities, with more hotel accommodation will always be higher up the table than smaller towns.

I used to do survey interviews for Visit Britain that asked about visits, including day trips (not overnight stays) which would probably have raised Stratford, and probably places like Alnwick further up the table.

There are rumours circulating in the "Crew Room" that Loganair are looking at cutting their Exeter flights. Any ideas please.

Quoted from a not so reliable source. "TUI to operate a 1 X weekly flight from Newcastle to La Romana on the 787, the operation will start in December 24 and extend throughout the winter period and end in March 25"

Not entirely sure of how accurate this is as I've not seen any slots for LRM from NCL. Anyone else know about this?

Remember La Romana was pretty common from lots of the TUI bases, wonder why it went out of favour. Like Cayo Coco.. these routes/destinations come and go.

What does the airport use the Southern stand for, marked as 60-62 on google earth?

Boris.

How many were they doing for the summer season? Didn't I read it was 5 rotations per week?

Usually long stay biz-jets, especially those with a wide wing-span

Shows on the booking system as a route on the drop down but shows all gone so they are possibly still loading this. Will be great news if the route happens.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....01db641501.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9bc4a84d15.jpg

And them.

Thanks for the sensible answer. Did Jet 2 keep the 733QCs over there.
Why not the FedEx at the moment instead of a northside stand.

Fantastic if true, TUI is expanding into La Romana from December 2024, so this might just be true. There is scope for more long haul from TUI out of NCL. I would have thought that Puerto Vallarta, or more regular/scheduled services to Barbados and Montego Bay might have been more likely, but the Caribbean seems to be growing in popularity and we've been lacking a service to the DR for a while. Fingers crossed

Because freight is screened. Simples.