Sorry for the OTish post, but I'm wondering about the economics of committing to buy a given # of seats on a new route to convince an airline to start it. IT's a route which might be able to get regional backing/financial aid too.

Specifically, I'm thinking of LON-SIR (Sion, Switzerland), which has scant service from Snowjet designed for people going on package ski trips, but nothing catering to the large number of wealthy Londoners who want to ski in Switzerland on winter weekend (With whom I routinely share BA 8767 on Fridays and BA 737 on Sundays).

Service might well be commercially viable on a standalone basis (although of course there are questions about return seats which need to be thought about); especially if airlines want to avoid leaving shorthaul aircraft parked in London and for an airline with greater demand for SH equipment on weekdays. How do I go about speaking to BA/AF/U2/FR/LX about offering to buy a given volume of seats/generally making it happen/further investigating viability (apart from just asking B747-437)?

As an interesting anecdote on viability, LX's "banker's weekend special" LCY-GVA 18:40 departure on Thursday's and Friday's is yield managed to only sell C or Y seats, regardless of how far out you try to book.

Cheers,
Alex