I had a weekend break in Gibraltar mid November from BHX. I realise this is only a snapshot, but load figures outbound from BHX on a Thursday was 100 (asked at check in), return on a Sunday from what I could see was 100% full. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of loads over the 3 days of operation per week and other UK airports.
Well I think Monarch started the route because what happened to Bmibaby when they did EMA-GIB. This route only operated during Summer 2012 and because the route was very popular the Gibraltar Government immediately acted to search for a new airline to serve the Midlands:
This was taken from the Gibraltar Chronicle on 17th May 2012:
The Government also noted that regrettably services from East Midlands Airport in the UK operated by bmibaby will discontinue as from September 2012 due to the closure of the airline. However Government did confirm that it has acted immediately to ensure the continuation of services by another airline from East Midlands to Gibraltar as from the start of the summer season of 2013, the details of which will be announced in due course.