Ownership
A complicated web they wove. My initial thought is what happens to the funding for the expansion if there are such relatively dramatic changes happening (and still to come) in respect of the airport's ownership?
Ryanair
Mr. O'Leary and his band of merry (?) men are saying some interesting things recently. His polemic about STN, and the drama of the "40%" fleet reduction was somewhat undermined when it transpired he was comparing Summer 08 with Winter 09, and that the true like-on-like reduction was 4 aircraft (about 14%). So the difficulty is that I generally assume that whatever Ryanair say is probably misleading, bordering on untruth.
I do wonder if Mr. O'Leary's fleet is now bigger than the middle-of-nowhere destinations he can fly to? It sounds like the extra planes coming to BRS are in fact just freeing up some planes at other bases to try and work other routes. And it will be strange if the winter programme shows greater lineup of destinations than the summer. But Ryanair is home of the strange, and the blatant headline grabbing.
I won't be disappointed if Bristol turns out to be Ryanair's Waterloo.....