Raffles

Kgmm77

Vinotraveller

Their Edinburgh to Bergerac service which I think lasted less than a year was a very odd route, and with it being operated by a QC400 was painfully slow.

flatlander

That's true for a lot of these lesser routes. Many a British holiday home owner in France, buying in the more isolated rural regions and relying on a Ryanair flight for easy access, have had a nasty surprise when Ryanair cancelled the route leaving them with a many hour drive from some more distant airport.

If you're going to rely on air travel to somewhere, it has to be between places that have such a large economic base in each place and business connections between that it is near-inevitable that someone will fly the route. It is, for example, economically inconceivable that there will not be Amsterdam - Rome flights operated by someone, or London-Amsterdam, or London-Madrid, or so on. It's entirely conceivable that Exeter - Amsterdam might not be operated by anyone and then if you are depending on that to run your Exeter office with its major Dutch business partners, you're stuffed.

That's why I would not move out of SE England to elsewhere, except possibly Manchester/Leeds area or at a push, Glasgow. I can't be living where there is not far more than the critical mass of people and money to sustain a good flight network. Similarly, locations in Europe away from major cities are right out, no matter how nice the countryside in northern Spain, western Denmark, etc are.

Akoz

Not sure BA want/need a feeder to EDI, NCL,LCY etc. The Flybe LHR route BA already feed themselves. If they still had the LGW routes they sold to EZY then maybe, just maybe - but they don't.

Stobart Air would be a better fit then BA/IAG as a buyer - they already are a Flybe franchisee, but so are Eastern and so possibilities there too.

Another alternative that could possibly work is Airline Investments Limited - Added into the BMI reginal & Logan networks some operational and management savings could well be made. Plus it would be good to see BMI back at LHR.

cornishsimon

simons1

That I fear is the issue. Who wants a rag bag of (mainly secondary) regional and domestic routes that lose Ł22m in a year?

For London Airways there is little there to feed their hubs - one route into LGW and a couple into LHR that duplicate existing BA routes.

I suppose the only hope is that someone could take cost out and restore profitability by merging head office functions and downsizing. Good luck to them.

squawk

All good points, @flatlander, though I quibble a little with that in a UK context: even up here in the wilds of the "desolate" north east (not my words…) we are far better connected than many would assume - I'm sure @corporate-wage-slave would agree!

Newcastle itself is 1.5 hours from Edinburgh, and 3 from central London, by trains which are generally pretty reliable and frequent, and we have approx 5 daily flights to LHR, 2-3 to CDG, and 3-4 to AMS. I certainly agree that I wouldn't want to run a business that relied on a point-to-point marginally viable route from Newcastle to somewhere, but with good connections to a hub, it's perfectly possible. I'd love to see a better High Speed Rail network that linked directly to major airports, and perhaps the UK will eventually get one, as our geography is such that this could be a significant game-changer for freeing up capacity at places like LHR as well as connectivity via BHX, MAN, or LGW.

Back to FlyBe/Eastern to LCY - I'm tempted to book this if it isn't outrageously expensive, at some point, if only for the novelty factor. The timing could be quite useful, though I assume BA won't offer any kind of codeshare, to connect to a range of BA CityFlyer destinations.

I'm still holding out for some NCL-LGW flights, again to allow better connections, but fear that is a forlorn hope. We might even be more likely to see "HighSpeed4Air" (the suggested Gatwick-Heathrow High Speed connection, which I actually think is an excellent idea) first. And I doubt that will happen anytime soon either.

Concerto

That's a good point, I had forgotten about easyJet Switzerland. They are not likely to go out of business anytime soon. They are not so easy to differentiate from mainline easyJet, apart from the IATA code being DS instead of U2 (or EZS instead of EZY if you use the 3-letter codes). Also, the registration on the tail begins with HB for Switzerland. One thing is noticeable: the onboard BoB trolley contains superior products to mainline easyJet.

KeaneJohn

1010101

Yes they are definitely an odd one. They compete, supposedly as an LCC, on a couple of my most regular routes but i have never flown them; the schedules are there but they are always significantly more expensive.

You can also go to any obscure airport seemingly anywhere in Western Europe and there will be a Flybe turboprop ready and waiting.

mickeyjaw

Well Flybe seem to suit me quite well for leisure travel, having used them a few times this year.

Despite the fact that I live and work about 25 miles from LHR it is actually quicker for me to get to SOU on public transport than it is to get to LHR, and I can get a direct train rather than train then national express.

Fares on some routes I fly have also been cheaper out of SOU than BA ex-LHR on most occasions.

Now I just have to hope they survive until Xmas because I have one more booking with them before then...

Sealink

I really like Flybe but you must question a management that decided to compete with a previous partner (Loganair) in Loganairs home market... In winter. Screams of management run on emotion and spite rather than business acumen.

allturnleft

Sealink

They got the slots for free as part of the bmi deal with BA. Virgin used them first for Little Red.

Not sure how well they are doing load wise, I used them twice and each flight was packed. With their new Avios deal (3 per Ł1 spent) you'll end up with more Avios per booking than on a cheap BA ticket. But no TP naturally.