The obsession of many people, particularly local politicians, with having "London links" is so great that I could see many of them being willing to overlook the loss of several other FR routes if they were thrown the bone of a 2-3 daily PIK-STN. I'm interested to see how FR would be persuaded to do it though, I thought APD made most domestics a no-go for them?
Non-based was certainly what I heard last re GLA flights.