Jamessh,
I read your post with interest. Many will be negative about start up airlines and with hid reason. The costs involved are enormous, and few banks will fund such a venture. The cash burn is enormous in set up phase and scale is required to make any airline work. The time it takes to get to a scale that makes sense is costly, and as history had shown few achieve it. The number of airlines had declined enormously to boot.
It isn't easy getting accepted for PSOs and even more difficult having new ones implemented. Furthermore, the authority granting them will prefer well established successful airlines who are financially sound for the investment!!!
Citywing and AirWales are good examples that you mention. Clearly neither are with us and they faced the pressures of cost, competition and indeed the lack of any sustainable competitive advantage.
Bmi regional charge top dollar because they can, they have a very limited supply if seats in the market for a premium offering in terms of timings etc. And sun for those who are most time precious. Makes sounds commercial sense to me. The aircraft they operate is far from fuel efficient, two jet engines on an aircraft that burns significantly more fuel than say a turboprop like a saab 2000, ATR72 or Dash8...
Stobart's former self Aer Arann have looked into LDY, and at a point planned new routes to MAN and BHX, but they were cancelled before go live. I'm sure if you look back far enough on this forum you'll see the details. Today for Stobart, on a commercial basis, the question is not whether a route will work, it is a question of where will placing the aircraft give the greatest return, so given the history of LDY routes etc. They may shy away..
Loganair who have a long history of serving airports in Ulster and at one time they were very big operating from CFN, LDY and BHD, could be a great option, as they have expertise in connecting small communities with appropriately sized aircraft on a sustainable footing. They were once a multiple daily operator on e.g. BHD MAN with 146 jets and that was as recent as the end of the 90's!!!!