Slots to Edinburgh and Aberdeen have been up for grabs since Virgin axed its Little Red flights last September, leaving British Airways with a monopoly on these routes. The 14 pairs of Heathrow slots were left open for another operator to move in, with BA being barred from increasing flights to these cities because it had acquired the slots through its 2011 purchase of Bmi.
The Scottish Herald has reported Flybe chief executive Saad Hammad saying it was “unreasonable” to expect his airline to pay the same charges at Heathrow as rivals. Little Red operated 180-seat aircraft, but Flybe’s fleet is in the 78-118-seat range and so has higher operating costs per passenger.
Heathrow had offered airlines a £10 per passenger discount until January 2017, but Hammad said this was “not enough”.
