As most of you say S/Air need to cut the management level down to compete on price with their current customer airlines and new airlines looking for a handling agent.
As has been said some factors are out of S/Air’s control like BAA raising landing charges because STN has to stand on its own two feet and it can not sponge off Gatwick or Heathrow.
For S/Air to become more competitive they need to cut out a layer of management and stop asking out stations to fund HQ in Manchester. HQ in MAN have money problems and after talking to people who work for S/Air out of Bristol and Jersey and saying they are all having same problems as STN makes me think is there a bigger problem within S/Air. But I may be wrong. As for S/Air at STN, some academic practises would not go a miss like introducing Total Quality Management. Make the staff feel valued and looked after them and destroy the negative culture that is rampant in management and staff.