Originally Posted by
TransWorld
My understanding (I may be wrong) for government subsidized Essential Air Service, the 200’s need Zero passengers to break even.
Nope, if there are 0 passengers for an extended period of time, the maximum subsidy per passenger gets exceeded and then the route gets defunded completely and nobody breaks even unless an exemption is issued to the airline for extenuating circumstances (such as COVID).
The airline needs to attract a certain amount of passengers at a certain price to reduce the subsidy per passenger ratio to keep the route viable.