A possibility, but seems strange. Going from a London airport where competition exists, to serve another London airport where competition still exists...
On the LGW route they have codeshare and interline agreements, allowing for point to point and connection traffic. At STN would the majority of traffic not be purely point to point, or connecting with seperate tickets?
Now I know I'll be blasted for this as it's pure hearsay, and potentially a complete one-off; but speaking to an employee at BHD, last week loads generally appeared healthy on BE to Gatwick, with some flights full, and near full. Whilst apparently some EI LGW flights were going out with single figures. Just mentioning this to see if anyone can confirm. Are the loads generally low on EI, or is this pure tosh??? I'm sure some flights are busy, others can be picked as examples of appalling loads, but on the whole??