Stopover?
It's certainly something they could look at, especially now that they have sorted out the cost base on long haul flights (hopefully saving the MCO flights). However, I recall that when either JM or BW were looking at flights to Ireland (around the time they started serving BFS), they were stymied by the Shannon stop policy. I think this applies to all t/a flights.
So, another potential avenue of growth successfully thwarted at govt level. This is one of the key issues to be faced: the same people who apparently want EI to be privatised are also the single greatest obstacles to a successful privatisation.