Hi De Hi,

That is something which is being discussed at high level. Unfortunately, it's not just a simple case of airlines choosing to fly in to regional airports. They tend to operate in and out of hubs, where their partner airlines also serve. This gives them much bigger network coverage and therefore need to fly in to these same airports. Many regional airports don't have the facilities to handle large aircraft and don't have connecting flights throughout europe and the rest of the world, which is a limiting factor for them. One of the main factors are passengers themselves; business traffic tends to be concentrated around London so that's where the market is. Airlines make most money from business and first class passsengers, not economy. Regional airports tend to be dominated by the charter (holiday) market. Major internationals are dominated by the domestic and scheduled sector. Some airlines like Delta, Continental and American serve the larger regionals (CO serve BHX) but the majority of traffic is concentrated around LHR and LGW. It would make sense for airlines to operate out of regionals in terms of serving other parts of the country and reducing air traffic congestion in London, but there just isn't the market or facilities for it. Even our own so called national airline 'British Airways' concentrates on London. They only have one flight which operates to/from a non-London based airport (MAN-JFK) and that is being pulled in October. British Airways should really be re-named 'London Airways'.

Then there's the question of the number of flights and fuel efficiency. Larger aircraft tend to be cheaper to operate than smaller aircraft (cost per seat). If they served regional airports, they would need a larger number of smaller aircraft. This isn't cost effective compared to serving a single international airport with a smaller number of large aircraft (ie same capacity but fewer aircraft) along with partner airlines bringing in passengers from regionals and the rest of the world under codeshare agreements.

Darren