Locals protest for airline to ‘stop flights,’ cancel certain route | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

While airlines will determine which flights to run based on their potential to bring in traffic and thereby generate revenue, making decisions based on traffic alone would leave many rural areas cut off from the rest of the country and the world.

In the U.S., government programs such as Essential Air Service (EAS) and Small Community Air Service Development (SCASDP) subsidize certain unprofitable routes to meet specific communities’ needs. In the United Kingdom, funds for such routes are allocated through a Public Service Obligation (PSO) program designed to ensure transport connectivity throughout the country’s territory.

In 2021, the British government allocated £4.3 million (roughly $5.76 million USD under the current rate) to fund two direct flights to London from Newquay in the westernmost county of Cornwall and Dundee in northern Scotland.

The flight from Newquay Airport (NQY) to London Gatwick (LGW) had previously run up to twice a day by Eastern Airways, but was taken over by Skybus on a Titan Airways ATR 72 plane after the former airline collapsed due to lack of funds in November 2025.

Flights between Cornwall, London Gatwick run 80% empty, local council announces

Skybus’ pickup solved the immediate problem of relaunching a route that no other carrier runs, but as lawmakers at a Jan. 13 Cornwall Council meeting revealed, the flight has been running up to 80% empty, while Newquay Airport is still owed £1.6 million in airport fees from Eastern Airways.

Given that the airline collapsed in bankruptcy, the regional airport is unlikely to ever recoup the fees unless assigned something through a liquidation process.

As Channel Islands-based regional carrier Blue Islands also collapsed in November 2024, Skybus was also left without some of the smaller planes it had been using to run the route.

“That left Skybus with two choices – cancel the route and leave Cornwall without a vital air link or find a solution at very short notice,” Councillor and Chairman Connor Donnithorne said during the meeting.

“They chose to keep the route running especially as Eastern Airways unexpectedly also ceased operations only weeks before, leaving Cornwall without a PSO route and all the important daily activity to London.”

The collapse of Eastern Airways left local authorities in Cornwall without a connecting route and having to make tough choices.

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“The only aircraft available immediately were much larger than ideal”

Donnithorne went on to explain that “the only aircraft available immediately were much larger than ideal and not traditionally used on regional routes,” but a Bombardier Q400 with 78 seats has been allocated and used to run it from Jan. 14.

Even so, the news headlines around the empty seats caused an immediate outcry among some residents of Cornwall, who felt that tax funds were going toward a flight few people are taking, rather than toward more pressing needs in the area.

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“If it is 80% empty, then it’s obviously not an essential service,” one resident said to local outlet CornwallLive. “Why should the rest of us subsidise it? Time to stop the flights.”

But as argued by lawmakers and other residents, numbers pulled at a given time are not enough to justify cutting a flight, especially when axing it entirely will leave a remote community with no, or very limited, transport options.