Patty, how long do you think it would take Ryanair, EasyJet, Southwest, Jetblue to start flying the North Atlantic if it were profitable?

I can see it now: Bangor, Maine the hub for flights to Stansted. The Airbus 430 with 500 passengers shuttling back and forth. No airport congestion. Might even convince Freddie Laker to leave the Bahamas.

Different country - different legal system but I lost 200,000 air miles when Ansett went bust in Australia. :(

jsmith,
Let me know when those BGR-STN flights are scheduled to start :D

NYC-STN flights on Maxjet (cut from the same cloth as opther European LCC's?) start Q3 of this year, I think (oh, I guess we're already in Q3, huh? - - well, their test flights <i>have</i> begun; I'm not sure when the paying customers' service begins).

The answer has already been given, Patty. When it's profitable to fly the North Atlantic.

The airplane would be the new Airbus 380 not 430: http://www.airbus.com/en/myairbus/ai...of_flying.html

Bangor is an international airport with a 3486 meter runway. It is an alternate landing facility for the Space Shuttle so it already has most of the necessary infrastructure in place. I don't know if Stansted is similiarly equipped but I'm sure there would be alternatives.

I'll be sure to let you know when I start to raise the money for this venture.

rex,
On the other end of the spectrum there's www.eosairlines.com - I wonder if any of these ventures will take off.