whatever way you want to look at it aviation is a ruthless business like banking, retail, hospitality etc etc. Brexit may or may not be a partial factor but every airline represented at Bfs has played games before to get their way, FR being the most well known at playing airports one against the other and blagging subsidies. It's fairly common nowadays for airlines to seek funding for routes and government to offer subsidies to gain/keep them. As has been stated DUB is seeing big growth and BFS will probably need every assistance in getting transatlantic flights to come and stay. As is often the case their is a negative response on here but I reckon stormont has done us well, I can't imagine if there was a queue of airlines they would have committed to such a deal, we now have 3 years guaranteed service during which time other routes and carriers can be attracted.