I’m actually putting my hat in the ring for Firnas.
New start up that will be looking for incentives to help them start up. They have an emphasis of wanting to serve ‘unserved’ routes, will use the J41 so ideal for Carlisle and so on. They need to put their aircraft somewhere and can’t think of many other unserved UK domestic routes that would be an obvious fit for them?
Also, as this is a Stobart airport, why would they be so coy if Stobart Air were operating the routes, would hardly be a ‘didn’t see that one coming’ moment, would it?