There are several things that led to the demise of Bonus and some are going to be common to many other institutions as well.
Some of the common areas are:
1. Cost of Avgas
2. Aerodrome Operating cost and environment
3. Catchment area
4. Aging aircraft fleet
5. Competition overseas and from lower cost operators
6. Economic climate
For Bonus the above, but additionally they lost a lot of their key personnel most especially Jo Bampton and latterly their iconic CFI Pete Godwin who “retired” from Bonus but not from flying/examining. I think with the departure of these persons particularly and ultimately the death of the owner all led to its demise. If they owner had not been so anxious to secure an unrealistic price for the company and had not rejected a realistic staff buy-out last year it may not have come to this. The problem was that a trust owned the aircraft/capital equipment and the company basically only had and the approvals and reputation as assets; so it was not a worthwhile investment for anyone.
Is there a future for these FTO’s? Maybe not – but there are companies out there who will make it and these are the ones who have a more realistic and enlightened approach to the future.