I'm not surprised the SOU-GIB route would do well - it's been a long time coming; but I am surprised that Eastern is making it work. In my opinion this route would be even more popular if it was operated by BA Cityflyer or even easyJet. Eastern doesn't have huge reach and is constrained by budgets they can't spend a fortune on marketing etc etc... If it doesn't end up working for them in particular i'm pretty sure it would be picked up by BA in the future.