Re: Scotland on Sunday: Secret talks on London bullet train

In message 
<54300e9d-8d37-48ab-9c6a-0e6b8d85f455@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, at 
08:14:34 on Mon, 2 Jun 2008, John B <spam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> remarked:
>I'm not sure Ryanair or Easyjet even has "hubs" in the traditional
>sense - yes, they have a lot of flights out of Stansted and Hahn, or
>Luton, Schiphol and Geneva, respectively - but only a vani****ngly
>small pro****tion of their traffic is made up of flights between those
>"hub" destinations, and nobody in their right mind would change planes
>there given the ticketing model.

They both clearly have "hubs" with lots of routes out on spokes to small 
places. What they don't have is point-point flights between many of the 
small places. And as Europe is smaller and denser than the USA, you 
don't often need to take two flights (and as you say their business 
model discourages it).

Let's look at Easyjet down the west of France and Spain: Nantes is 
served from both Gatwick and Geneva, but you can't fly anywhere other 
than Gatwick or Geneva. Similarly Jersey (Liverpool and Luton), La 
Rochelle (Bristol and Gatwick). And pretty much everywhere along that 
west coast. Faro is an extreme example (flights from 9 air****ts in UK, 
none anywhere else).
-- 
Roland Perry