I feel the writing is on the wall for the BFS base
Allmcc, Aer Lingus is doing just as well as the other airlines at Belfast. Easyjet have admitted that Belfast (and Madrid) are the most challenging markets at the moment. As regards the comparison with bmi, Aer Lingus loads are as good as bmi's in percentage terms and unless you work in Aer Lingus head office you are extremely unlikely to know the yield.
The base will not be closed, yes it's a difficult market but Jet2 has retracted on most routes and this makes a little space for Aer Lingus on some of the sun routes.
As regards comments that Aer Lingus started off badly with poor publicity, I really cant see how differently or better it could have been done.
widespread TV advertising at peak times, bill boards all over the province, newspaper advertising, advertising on the back of buses, sponsorship of one of the morning radio shows. I think we were bombarded with information and news on the subject. The market is limited in a challenging economic climate. Aer Lingus will come out of this better and when the economic climate lifts they will boom.
On a final note, the new routes ie Milan and Munich have 100 seats guarnteed sold via a travel agency and this is the reason why these particular ones were chosen. So in real terms EI are selling 74 seats on there website for each of these routes as the others are sold already on a package!