Spotting route disasters

[davidjohnson6]

As all are aware, when an airline opens a new route, the outcome is never quite certain - could be a goldmine, could be a disaster, or somewhere in between. Apart from cases where formal Govt backing exists, a non-state airline is likely to terminate flying on the routes with poor revenues. Of course if an airline regularly launches lots of flops, it is likely to see losses in the accounts or even go out of business quickly, so survivorship bias leads to the bulk of announced routes being succesful.

On a carrier like Ryanair, looking for flights with surprisingly low fares alone does not seem a particularly reliable way of picking out the flops.

Without having access to non-public revenue / yield data, are there any particular ways for Joe Public to spot when a route is struggling and a candidate for the chop more than a few weeks before an airline publicly announcing route termination or seasonal non-renewal ?

[racedo]

Without having access to non-public revenue / yield data, are there any particular ways for Joe Public to spot when a route is struggling and a candidate for the chop more than a few weeks before an airline publicly announcing route termination or seasonal non-renewal ?

As always a good question....

I would suggest no. Simple reason is that there are many factors involved which may not be obvious.

Porto to Dole in France is not an obvious route but then if you realise the phenomenal number of Portugeese in France then it may make sense. Somebody in Porto did their homework.

Likewise I had a friend work for a company with plants in Spain who 2 years ago had 30-40 people per week travelling back and forward to the UK, he said they booked 1-2 weeks max in advance and often it was next day. Spanish plant was 50km from Airport and UK one was 30 miles.............. don't think anybody could plan this into a route evaluation as it was just chance.

Guess for UK routes there is at least CAA figures but even then maybe not full picture as low passenger numbers could be offset by lots of last minute bookings per week improving yield.

Always found interesting was that the original FR routes into France were always into the heavy Rugby playing areas with decent teams.

[Heathrow Harry]

there is normally some loose talk on various forums (especially this one) and in local news outlets - but that might mean you having to read Polish or Serbian.......

[jabird]

I agree, a very good question, especially with FR.

How many times do we hear "but that flight was always busy".

Problem is, even if you can observe loads and get an idea of yields from the booking system, there is one factor that is missing - the behind the scenes deals.

MOL has often said how it is the airports that drive the route decisions as much as the cities or regions they serve. Sometimes, a route might also work when it enables an aircraft to be used for a quick rotation between two more profitable ones, but when the timetable changes, it just drops out.

One thing for sure - don't buy that dream holiday villa based on a single 3x weekly FR from STN!