There is now no chance of them losing the PSOs seeing as the requirements match 100% with what Arran would have liked, even down to combining Knock and Derry as one contract, making a NOC-based aircraft essential and giving the two fingers to Logan currently on the Derry route.
The winning Arran bids will be:
1 aircraft on NOC-DUB-Derry-DUB in the morning and DUB-Derry-DUB-NCO in the evening, free to do some Dublin routes during the day.
1 on Donegal-DUB-SGO-DUB in the morning, a lunchtime DUB-Donegal-DUB then tea-time DUB-SGO-DUB-Donegal
1 aircraft based in Galway doing a the current schedule (helped by having a second based aircarft for the UK routes doing extra Dublin flights)
1 aircraft spending the night in Kerry and doing four per day to Dublin and probably Dublin to the Isle of Man or suchlike to push up the utilisation.
Whatever about dropping some traffic on the UK, their core UK business will be ok but maybe a bit less profitable. The drafting of the PSO contracts as they have been is the biggest shot in the arm for Arran. If they don't win all these routes, they don't deserve to be in the business.
What happened to the Cityjet rumour on Dublin - Cork?