why risk losing/upsetting them by inviting FR in, who will land you further away from your destination
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Totally agree!!!
With LS bases at both MAN and EMA, and having experience on the domestic market with BFS - LBA flights for years I wonder would they consider this.
Read somewhere recently (possibly about WW at Cardiff) that a domestic route is very efficient in terms of crewing, as the cabin crew could do a European return and a domestic return per shift, but 4 European sectors is pushing the limits, so resulting in cabin crew only doing 2 sectors per shift. Don't know the detail obviously, but if true, crew costs for MAN or EMA based frames to operate BFS could be an achievable business decision.
BHX does not seem to immediately lend itself to any replacement carrier, but then again who'd have thought BE would launch BHD - EMA post FR.