Initially to stay "on thread", good luck to those lucky enough to be moving to a forward looking company. I'm sure you won't be the last especially with EASY expanding rapidly near and at more BACX bases !
Just to answer Amazon Man's point about CWL as someone directly involved. The reason we never managed to grow the CWL operation was a combination of NO ADVERTISING, HIGH FARES and the J41's reliability problems.
BMI have apparently created a vibrant buisiness at CWL, although that 46% rise should be taken with a pinch of salt as they gave away several thousand tickets, the main reason for this is ADVERTISING ! The good people of South Wales now know they have an airport and an airline with reasonable fares. I don't say Low Fares because we all know that this is a myth. However it is still possible to fly to EDI now for under £100 we were charging over £300 and using a J41. Even those that knew the service existed (not many as it was never really advertised) all thought it too expensive especially when GO brought their nice new 737s to BRS.
Even when the fares came down the J41s were by then so unreliable that the service became a joke. There was a period where the EDI and GLA flights were combined virtually every day !
The Embraer routes all did reasonable business even with the high fares being charged and when those were reduced passenger numbers increased to the point where it was even reported in BA news, although not advertised locally to any significant degree.
Had we had the capacity or foresight to put maybe one more 145 at CWL and advertised we'd have become a very profitable base. I'm not sure BMI will succeed long term with 737s as the business is not there once they have to start charging economic prices, but the 145 is the right tool for the job.
Oh yes and had Mr Evans and co ever thought to ask, the WDA would have given us as much money as the gave BMI in order to save the CWL base. But the BRS-NCL route (which is where one of the CWL a/c is going) in competition with EASY is BOUND to be more profitable than the CWL-CDG route ! NOT ! But there again those cities are both in ENGLAND aren't they. Good luck to those at GLA and EDI for the future unfortunately I think you're the wrong side of Hadrian's Wall.
Appologies for going off thread but the question was asked.