1) The runway is already long enough for continental flights following the recent works. Indeed we now have our first continental flight to Alicante, albeit from the timetable it seems to be summer only although it had been hoped to be all year round. Who knows, maybe next year it will be extended if the flights this summer sell well.
2) The statement that "if BHD doesn't get a runway extension then maybe Ryanair will start continental routes from LDY" begs the answer that Ryanair operated from LDY before BHD and so if anyone should feel that they are losing out it should be LDY if any continental flights start from BHD that are not also run from LDY.
3) Getting to the Belfast airports is not too difficult. The airporter service is usually quite good though perhaps not frequent enough at some times and yet sometimes is almost empty so I do understand the company's dilema. But it is expensive: £27 return. If flying to or from BHD, you might be better catching the Ulsterbus "Maiden city flyer" Goldliner instead. The timetable is also more frequent than the airporter but it doesn't call at Aldergrove.
4) Gatwick is one of the airports that could attract a large number of passengers from LDY. From Northern Ireland the main destination airports are Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow. LDY only serves Stansted, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow. Luton is not one of the main destination airports and if Easyjet didn't fly there from BFS it would have very few NI passengers so I'm not sure why Ryanair thought that it would be a good alternative to reinstating our Stansted flights.
As for EI operating a Gatwick flight from LDY, while I've no doubt it would be sucessful, even at 2 flights per day, I do wonder why they opened a base at all at BFS given that they would face direct competition from Easyjet and others and why they chose the routes they chose, 9 out of 14 of which have since ceased. LDY could have made more sense: they wouldn't have faced such direct competition and indeed any of the 14 routes would have had no alternative flight operating from the same airport. I know some doomsayer is about to state that the routes wouldn't have worked from LDY, but they didn't work from BFS and direct competition has to one of the main reasons ........
5) Can Northern Ireland sustain two operators and multiple flights to continental destinations or does EI's failure to sucessfully operate the routes from BFS spell the end to any hope of LDY getting any operator to start continental routes other than to the usual suspects of Alicante and Malaga etc.