What's doesn't make sense is that CWL can bring double the number of passengers in to Edinburgh than EXT. Yet the only information we can go by is Loganair saying they can make more money from EXT. The latest article posted above says (on average) 300+ people a day. That in terms of aircraft is a single daily A319, not far off double daily DH8 or ATR, or triple daily E145.
I'm no expert in Aviation economics, but surely 111,000 bums on seats a year means at least a single daily flight could have sustainable yields.

I'd be interested to see if EXT-EDI could survive at double daily or more.
 
I have refrained from entering this debate, but i cannot resist by agreeing with this post above. For anyone to suggest it’s not a sustainable route, is absolutely barmy.

BE were increasing EDI towards their latter days at CWL, possibly to utilise the aircraft in absence of other profitable routes, but still, the traffic carried on that route is pretty hefty by CWL and EDI domestic standards. I’d suggest anyone who says it’s unsustainable is a little unfounded in their claims - The only struggle is to find an airline who can operate it (whilst maintaining commercial viability), as we all know the world’s a very different place, more risk averse than ever, and very little UK domestic airlines who wants to take risks or have the cash to do at present.
 
I'd be interested to see if EXT-EDI could survive at double daily or more.

A couple of months ago I did a post in the CWL Loganair thread (reprised below) looking back at CAA stats each year until 2002 and listed the annual passenger totals on the CWL and EXT routes to both EDI and GLA. The figures are presented thus:

Year: CWL to EDI/GLA: EXT to EDI/GLA

2002 29,000/19,000 : nil/nil
2003 132,000/90,000* : nil/nil
2004 152,000/51,000* : 36,000/34,000
2005 160,000/33,000* : 71,000/42,000
2006 156,000/87,000* : 83,000/53,000
2007 158,000/77,000 : 68,000/56,000
2008 163,000/84,000 : 68,000/39,000
2009 161,000/56,000 : 61,000/33,000
2010 111,000/52,000 : 54,000/26,000
2011 84,000/47,000 : 51,000/24,000
2012 78,000/40,000 : 40,000/26,000
2013 77,000/48,000 : 37,000/24,000
2014 58,000/28,000 : 38,000/21,000
2015 69,000/18,000 : 45,000/3,000
2016 94,000/38,000 : 45,000/33,000
2017 99,000/29,000 : 48,000/39,000
2018 102,000/33,000 : 48,000/40,000
2019 111,000/25,000 : 58,000/34,000

* part way through 2003 bmibaby switched their GLA route to PIK (Prestwick) and of the 90,000 passengers flown on the 'Glasgow' service that year, 36,000 were to PIK. In 2004 bmibaby contracted Air Wales to operate the CWL-PIK route for them and this remained until April 2006 when Air Wales went out of business.The route was switched back to GLA and of the 87,000 passengers carried on the 'Glasgow' service that year 5,000 were to PIK by Air Wales on behalf of bmibaby

In terms of proven market in numbers on the EDI route CWL been well ahead of EXT for the entire period under review. The numbers in bmibaby days suggest that there is a big enough market for a 2 x daily Ryanair.

GLA is not as clearcut. Although CWL has generally carried more passenger than EXT on the route, recent years are much closer, although for much of 2015 EXT had no GLA route at all.

BE were increasing EDI towards their latter days at CWL, possibly to utilise the aircraft in absence of other profitable routes, but still, the traffic carried on that route is pretty hefty by CWL and EDI domestic standards.

Loganair also pulled EDI-MAN and GLA-MAN.

These were the main domestic route passenger numbers for EDI in 2019 - CAA stats.

Heathrow 1,197,000
Gatwick 731,000
Stansted 617,000
London City 515,000
Bristol 399,000
Belfast Int 329,000
Luton 313,000
Birmingham 265,000
Southampton 182,000
Belfast City 152,000
Manchester 116,000
Cardiff 111,000
East Midlands 72,000
Exeter 58,000
 
Whenever I looked at prices with Flybe from CWL, although not regularly checked, they were always reasonable, but I wouldn't say cheap. Most of the time comparable with Easyjet on similar routes, especially EDI. People i know that travel to EDI often said Flybe were more expensive than EZY. Now it's something that's been confined to history (Or memory), so we'll never know how the pricing was throughout, especially during winter. But i still stand by that at least a well timed daily flight should work CWL-EDI. Again, unlikely we'll ever know, but it would also be interesting to see the routes financial performance on a 2-3x daily E95, vs 3 daily DH8. It's good that CWL has the figures of the routes Flybe served, but given that the base was effectively subsidised in a way to support the jet leases it would be difficult to say what did/didn't work for Flybe would/wouldn't work for another Airline. A different Airline, with different finiancials, different lease and basic costs.

Below is a further comparison of EDI domestic routes to regional Airports. EXT and CWL the only Airports that saw growth from 2018 to 2019. I'm not entirely sure of frequencies from any of these Airports

2019 / 2018

CWL - 110391/102102 (Scheduled)

BHX - 265832 / 267695
BRS - 396911 / 400014
EMA - 72098 / 93215
EXT - 58135 / 48076
MAN - 116320 / 116953
SOU - 182716 / 183236
 
Whenever I looked at prices with Flybe from CWL, although not regularly checked, they were always reasonable, but I wouldn't say cheap. Most of the time comparable with Easyjet on similar routes, especially EDI. People i know that travel to EDI often said Flybe were more expensive than EZY. Now it's something that's been confined to history (Or memory), so we'll never know how the pricing was throughout, especially during winter. But i still stand by that at least a well timed daily flight should work CWL-EDI. Again, unlikely we'll ever know, but it would also be interesting to see the routes financial performance on a 2-3x daily E95, vs 3 daily DH8. It's good that CWL has the figures of the routes Flybe served, but given that the base was effectively subsidised in a way to support the jet leases it would be difficult to say what did/didn't work for Flybe would/wouldn't work for another Airline. A different Airline, with different finiancials, different lease and basic costs.

Below is a further comparison of EDI domestic routes to regional Airports. EXT and CWL the only Airports that saw growth from 2018 to 2019. I'm not entirely sure of frequencies from any of these Airports

2019 / 2018

CWL - 110391/102102 (Scheduled)

BHX - 265832 / 267695
BRS - 396911 / 400014
EMA - 72098 / 93215
EXT - 58135 / 48076
MAN - 116320 / 116953
SOU - 182716 / 183236
To bring the figures even more up to date for January and February this year (the only two months to be unaffected by the virus impact), CWL handled 7,624 passengers on the EDI route in January, up 27% on January 2019's 6,017, and 7,663 in February up 19% on February 2019's 6,412.

In contrast EXT handled 2,367 in January this year on its EDI route, down 17% on January 2019's 2,857, and 3,377 in February, down 6% on February 2019's 3,578.

BRS-EDI was near flat at 30,529 in January this year against 30,282 the previous January and 31,981 in February against 31,117 in February 2019.

Incidentally, the slight fall in passenger numbers on BRS-EDI in 2019 against the rises at both CWL and EXT in that year might be linked. 2019 was the first year since 2010 that BRS-EDI had not seen a year-on-year rise in passenger numbers. From memory, the number of flights each week in 2019 was broadly as in 2018.
 
GLA is not as clearcut. Although CWL has generally carried more passenger than EXT on the route, recent years are much closer, although for much of 2015 EXT had no GLA route at all.
With GLA Flybe seemed to use it more as a filler than a main route like EDI and DUB.
I'm not entirely sure of frequencies from any of these Airports
I think BHX was 6 daily and SOU 4 to 5 daily. MAN 4 daily i think and EMA 3 daily for the most part.
 
When you look at those figures, it makes the excuse made by the Loganair boss, that they wouldn't be able to make CWL-EDI pay, sound very lame, he must have had a better offer from elsewhere.
 
When you look at those figures, it makes the excuse made by the Loganair boss, that they wouldn't be able to make CWL-EDI pay, sound very lame, he must have had a better offer from elsewhere.
We'll never know but it did seem like he was basing the decision on sales during a crisis. With Exeter launched its a shame that they couldn't have continued with the combined CWL EXT flight they operated a fee times.
Hopefully they'll return or CWL can persuade Eastern to takeover the Flybe operation and Edinburgh is included.
I still find it odd that flights can't be booked in the future to Scotland, Ireland and France.
 
" With this announcement – and new routes by BA CityFlyer to London City, Eastern Airways to Southampton, and Loganair to Glasgow – all of flybe’s core routes from the Northern Irish airport will once again be operated."
So i'm guessing Cardiff isn't considered a core route then?
Also interestingly that they don't consider Manchester for Leeds, BHX for East Midlands or Bristol for Exeter as indirect competition on this route despite that Loganair said Easyjet at Bristol was for Cardiff.
An interesting analysis of the new Aer Lingus Regional routes from BHD.

 
" With this announcement – and new routes by BA CityFlyer to London City, Eastern Airways to Southampton, and Loganair to Glasgow – all of flybe’s core routes from the Northern Irish airport will once again be operated."
So i'm guessing Cardiff isn't considered a core route then?
Also interestingly that they don't consider Manchester for Leeds, BHX for East Midlands or Bristol for Exeter as indirect competition on this route despite that Loganair said Easyjet at Bristol was for Cardiff.
Isn't this anna.aero's view of what constitutes a core route and indirect competition, and not necessarily the airline's?
 
Isn't this anna.aero's view of what constitutes a core route and indirect competition, and not necessarily the airline's?
Yes, but i guess it begs the question what can be considered a core route, especially from a small regional airport.
 
Could Wizz potentially be an indirect replacement for Thomas Cook? As reported elsewhere they've opened bases at Gatwick and Doncaster admittedly they already operated there but the bases are 1 aircraft, TCX only operated 1 aircraft. Most of the routes announced are sun routes. Faro, Larnaca, Lanzarote, Alicante, Malta, Naples are the sun routes. Lanzarote, Larnaca and Naples have only have TUI on them and other routes like Tenerife and Gran Canaria only have TUI on them along with other Spanish routes and PMI could be considered under served. Problem could be Eastern European routes that might not work from CWL especially in the winter.
Probably something that will never happen but it does look like Wizz want to expand into the more traditional UK markets so maybe in the future they may become an option for CWL?
 
Could Wizz potentially be an indirect replacement for Thomas Cook? As reported elsewhere they've opened bases at Gatwick and Doncaster admittedly they already operated there but the bases are 1 aircraft, TCX only operated 1 aircraft. Most of the routes announced are sun routes. Faro, Larnaca, Lanzarote, Alicante, Malta, Naples are the sun routes. Lanzarote, Larnaca and Naples have only have TUI on them and other routes like Tenerife and Gran Canaria only have TUI on them along with other Spanish routes and PMI could be considered under served. Problem could be Eastern European routes that might not work from CWL especially in the winter.
Probably something that will never happen but it does look like Wizz want to expand into the more traditional UK markets so maybe in the future they may become an option for CWL?
The difference between Wizz and TCX is the tour operator arm. Things are very different now and there's different opinions on if Travel Agents are now a more attractive prospect since covid as they give greater sense of being looked after and someone to go to.

Easyjet have set up their holiday arm and Ryanair whilst offer holiday sections have never really been seen as a holiday seller.

Now if Wizz were clever, given that there's only really TUI and Jet2 left in the tour operator with Airline market, they could tie up with independent travel agents like Travel House and Hayes, the latter having taken a lot of business formerly of Thomas Cooks.
Then yes, I think it could work as a replacement for TCX, along with a low cost flight offering to sun destinations. It would also help get Wizz known in the area as the South Wales Market isn't really familiar with the brand.
Its a good point made about them appearing at smaller Airports.
 
I suppose that is the problem in that they don't have a holiday arm but that i'd have thought wouldn't stop travel agents from using flights if they were like minded. It'll be interesting to see how far they take this expansion into the UK market.
 

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