Jaime
You are partially correct in your statement (in my opinion)
Yes the previous management at BFS I believe should have done more to keep EI, but moving 15 miles to another airport "because customers prefer its location" we know was "we got a better deal at BHD" If we look at caa stats for January London routes decline, BFS all London routes increase. This I think proves that for the majority of NI pax the location of airport is irrelevant. Price is what is important
Unless EI start something for the winter 16/17 there will only be 3 daily services to LHR by EI......yes that will mean potential job losses or relocation.
Just my opinion
You are all looking into the CAA stats for January way to much. There are lots of factors which could be behind the increase ex BFS of LON traffic and none related to either airport directly.
They will unlikely add anything during winter so just LHR, no big deal.
There is a lot of talk about incompetent mgmt at BFS and how the new ones are much better....
... it is the same people with support from a new owner.
As for EI leaving, mgmt couldn't have done much because they were offered a much better deal by BHD and the ownership of BFS didn't let the local mgmt do anything. Odd but true!
Fair enough about owner/management however really good deal at BHD or not then overall profitability of BFS base would come into question. Canary routes are the only loss to EI's operation therefore they were not making enough money ex BFS.