Ah, perhaps I wasn't quite clear.
If Manx2 now start opening routes at Cardiff, based on the fact that they have an aircraft there (due to the highly subsidised route to the north), then other operators are more than entitled to ask if those routes would have happened if the NS link was not in place.
If the answer to that is no, then there is a case to argue that the WAG is, de facto, funding other routes, albeit obliquely. THAT is something other operators should object to, and I would bet some of them will.
The reason why Manx2.com didn't operate anymore flights the last 7months is that if there was no contract after the 7 months and the aircraft were to be removed from cwl then they probably didn't want to comit to new routes
If that indeed is the position, then what that says to me is that the funding on the NS link IS a part of the thinking on new routes. If they had routes that could stand on their own two commercial feet without the NS link, then perhaps they would have started them, hmm?
The Aer Arann case is different - they had a base that was there before PSO, they just obtained PSO routes from there. Hard to argue that the PSO routes started the base...