Costs and Safety
In the "good old days" - JEA paid a king's ransom to BCA for access as did BRAL. Figures being quoted were somewhere between £15 and £18 per dep pax. Gill paid around £6 per dep pax.
I don't know what Midland are paying at BCA now but I bet it's none of the above. Like him or loathe him, Mikey Bish has run a tight ship. He has survived where others failed. He didn't do this by being profligate with his expenses. He will have nailed the BCA boys to the floor and preserved his options elsewhere. The deal must have been good because for all the rhetoric of "it's dead easy on short runways" rubbish, size matters and I bet the bmi safety evaluation boys thought long and hard about the implcations before any move was made.
The question is however, is the deal so good that the benefits outweigh the risks? It must be.
However, notwithstanding the economics on the blustery day in question someone else was in the chair and said "I don't do windshear". Good on yer, mate.