Where now for the LCC's

[MEFLYBE]

The UK's low cost/fares carriers have come a long way in the past 5 years. Opening several new UK regional bases. But where are the likes of Mytravel lite, Easyjet, flybe., Ryanair, bmibaby and Jet2 to name a few going to head next?

I see potential large markets at Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh, still untapped by the true low cost airlines. Flyglobespan and Air Scotland seem to be a bit confused with what the true low cost business is about, there is a market, especially at GLA for the likes of Easyjet to expand.

Apart from these mainline airports, i can only see Norwich, Humberside, Bournemouth, Aberdeen, Jersey and the Isle of Man as the main contenders for the next low cost base.

I think there IS a market for NWI, HUY and JER especially, but it would seem that the majority of low cost airlines only operat 150+ seat a/c, probably too large for these smaller markets.

So, IS it viable to operate smaller a/c on low cost services, and if so, who will be next on the list?

Regards

Mike

[ALLMCC]

Good comments - can only speak with any accuracy about Belfast market which is frankly in somewhat of a mess! Easyjet have succeeded in flooding the local market from BFS with Flybe left to try to compete from BHD - perhaps this is to be expected with two airports - the end result is fragmentation of the market and with talk of Bmibaby moving from BFS to BHD is likely to become even more competitive.

On the subject of a/c, Flybe are using 78 seat D8 400's on several routes and seem to be holding their own.

Agree that there is probably an untapped market at Belfast particularly in respect of international routes and hopefully the recently announced government subsidies will address this.