LCCs increasingly attracted to primary airports

LCCs have long targeted secondary level, and even tertiary level, airports and have even more been the targets of those airports pressuring them to put their services into them, irrespective of the cost.

But a sea-change in LCCs' circumstances has resulted in many of them flying increasingly from primary and even major hub airports. the trade off: passenger yields can be considerably higher, even if loads are lower and costs higher. On the downside, a rapid turnaround is more difficult to achieve.

This report identifies the degree to which primary airports have been infiltrated by budget airlines (surprisingly highly in some cases, hardly at all in others) and what the reasons are, and to offer some insight into what each party looks for out of the deal.