in short my take on it is Linate have denied CityFlyer slots for years claiming there were none left. CityFlyer managed to get slots via Air Italy which was a short lived airline owned by Qatar, who own a large share of IAG, who own BA, who own BACF. This worked until Air Italy closed and BACF lost the borrowed slots.despite Italia going bankrupt and all their slots becoming available, somehow Linate claim all those slots are now not available again, so no LIN route. “If you are so desperate to serve Milan, why aren’t you even going to MXP?”. So BACF kept one daily to play the game, but unsurprisingly it’s not worked. The joke is ITA can’t even fly the LCY-LIN route themselves and have to wet lease German Airways.
Slot leases started long before QR ownership of Air Italy, in the meridiana days. Wonder who picked up the 4 daily slots - ITA no doubt !