Leaving the bickering and why's and wherefores aside, whether Ryanair's withdrawal of the Stansted route is good news or bad news only time will tell but the news that the NI Executive and UK Department of Transport are prepared to invest is good news although probably long over due.
Looking at the numbers there are numerous routes that could be run commercially and indeed have been in the past.
Ryanair have carried 120,000 pax on Stansted last year. At one stage it was nearly 150,000 with twice daily flights.
Ryanair had 35,000 on their Bristol route and 60,000 each on their Birmingham and East Midland routes.
British airways carried 40,000 pax on a Manchester route in the 1990s.
Loganair successfully ran the GLA route with only 12000 pax p.a. for two decades before Ryanair.
And all this without subsidies.
Unfortunately with Ryanair now only running 2 flights a week to Liverpool, it's not enough to provide a service but probably more than enough to put off another operator although in actual fact Loganair's Glasgow route increased passenger numbers after Ryanair commenced flights to Prestwick so it could be possible for two operators to fly this route.