WWW,
Until the middle of June you could book return flights direct on the Continental website for around £335, incl taxes and charges, for virtually any period, flying til the end of August. I often did comparisons with other UK airports on CO to EWR and, for comparable dates, BRS was usually the cheapest.
The latest fares offer on the BRS website show all-in return fares of £308 or £341 (weekends). Apparently there are similar fares at the US end and this 'summer sale' was what gave rise to the Airliners.net thread with people suggesting it was probably a desperate last throw of the dice .
Having said this I have also heard anecdotal evidence that supports your contention. No wonder outsiders like me are confused. On the one hand we hear CO are almost giving away tickets and on the other we are told fares are too high.
As for the money from the SWRDA, you are right when you say the work would have been done anyway and the airport has an extra £1.5 million to spend as it sees fit. I already said that no-one outside the organisations concerned knows what contract arrangements were made (or presumably shouldn't know), but the Airliners thread talks about a one-year route subsidy which is somewhat different, unless of course an insider has leaked that is what BRS has effectively paid CO.
I wasn't really thinking of Hank and Martha. I was thinking more of business pax who would have a fast track through arrivals (I presume BRS is at least looking after the CO premium pax to that extent) then hop into a taxi and be at Temple Meads in twenty minutes for their HST to Paddington.
WATABENCH,
You say people don't know about the routes you outlined yet most of these, from the word go, have carried high load factors and in many cases extremely high ones. There is no doubt the region has the catchment to support a New York service as well. This is what makes me think there must be other reasons other than a lack of knowledge, albeit I still think advertsing at this end could be better. Can't speak for the USA.
Windsheer,
You are undoubtedly right about the load factor having to be raised yet no-one has yet addressed WATABENCH's and my puzzlement re BHX which also appeared to have an overall load factor similar to BRS's in June, albeit spread over twice the number of flights.
Also around 69% on BRS-EWR throughout the year WOULD meet CO's stated aim for the first year of 75,000 pax.