There's already trans-South Atlantic non-stop service by several carriers.

That's the trouble. This project is an extreme example of a government style where they can eventually find the substantial funds for capital investment (building the airport) but then show extreme parsimony in funding the continuing operation (running a service). I'm sure there are some in government who cannot understand why commercial operators are not falling over themselves to provide a service, and there will even be a few who want to apply some form of tax/charge to it to recoup the capital investment. Completely divorced from reality.

It does seem that Comair have got commercial cold feet over the thing, and it also seems that Comair have been the only operator who seem to have had difficulty landing there. I presume that South Africa has relatively benign weather, and their crews have little experience of Funchal, Sumburgh, or other comparable places. Their "special" 737, which actually just seemed to be a standard one, seems to have been happily deployed on their internal South African routes equally with the rest of their fleet. There's little medium-haul charter capacity available in southern Africa, but presumably someone will eventually pick up the reins once enough financial support is provided.

There are three known potential bidders, apparently.

By the way, within all this enthusiasm I must have lost the answer to the initial issue: has windshear been eliminated?

No, they are investigating aircraft that are less affected.

I cannot fathom why a Europe/UK - HLE - CPT service was never done in the first place with a decent aircraft that can manage the long legs and diversion fuel

dutch Germans and Brits are all major tourism players to CPT and the Saints want some of the action too hence the airfield being built
a 2 centre holiday choice with CPT and HLE makes a lot of sense plus the local RSA market too with tourists wanting to visit HLE

I never understood why JNB was the choice with comair and now the TUI holland deal from LTN via BJL also with a 737-800 is off as well

Virgin and SAA both gave up their direct nonstops to CPT from LHR ages ago

and now KLM LH Condor go to AMS and MUC FRA SR/Edelweiss to ZUR

BA has 3-4 flights a day sometimes in high season to both LHR and now LGW (3 to LHR and 1 to LGW)
TCK has LGW

Who would fly Europe - CPT on a narrow-body? That's all St. Helena can handle.

Who are they? SA Airlink, an Atlantic Star alliance and who else?

I don't know, but I would guess Azul.

The only problem with that is few Brazilian's speak English and few Saints speak Portuguese. I don't see Brazilian tourism.

Language barriers never stopped tourists before. Besides, I would expect HLE to be a subisdised fuel stop on a trans atlantic service.

Remember the service also has to serve Ascension, as many Saints work either there or on Falklands, which they get to via Add.

Yes, once per month.

People tend to tour and vacation where the service personnel can understand them. Language is definitely a travel barrier. There may be enough English speakers in Brazil. Five percent of 200 million is a lot! Let's hope that's a market. If they operate from Recife to ASI and HLE and CPT, that would give me a ride from ORL, REC, HLE on Azul.

From that Daily Telegraph article :

If I am not mistaken the results to be seen to date are zilch. More nonsense from the DfID.

The results seen so far are suitable aircraft identified and a new tender being issued.

Back in 1982 Argentina invaded a group of south Atlantic islands that many Brits had never heard of and all of a sudden operators were queuing up to operate air services to the Falklands, British Air Ferries for one and a new start-up, in the wake of the Laker Airways bankruptcy, 'South Atlantic Airways' which a certain Mr Branson invested in to changing the name to 'Virgin Atlantic Airways' which has never made it to the Falklands yet ... as far as I am aware! :)

Now we have similar entrepreneur(s), after Mount Pleasant we have another new airfield in the south Atlantic, queuing up to operate air services there, they've managed to access a somewhat geriatric BAe146 jet of at least 16 years vintage, heavy on TLC since the day it was new, endurance/payload problems etc., thus not really suitable for operations to/from such a remote island with alternates far and few between.

I'm presuming that the Embraer was operated by the manufacturer rather than an interested operator, at least the type is still in production although it is a little bit different operating empty aircraft as opposed to fully laden aircraft in/out of such an airfield, length of runway required etc.

So, so far, there is an entrepreneur or few wishing to operate a geriatric jet with endurance/payload restrictions/problems, I mean does such a proposed operation have anything going in it's favour or is it likely to be one problem after another after another etc?

Other than that there has been a test flight by Embraer with no actual type operator known to be queuing up to operate the services.

As with the Falklands in 1982, then South Atlantic Airways and British Air Ferries were both very vocal about operating there but it was all, pretty much, hot air!

Oh yes they have, forget the exact years, but they operated the South Atlantic Airbridge (BZZ-ASI-MPN) on charter to the MoD. I think it might have been during "Gulf War 1" when the RAF Tristars were busy doing other things.

Virgin certainly did the Falklands shuttle contract for a while, along with various other UK and third-party carriers. I don't think RAF aircraft have done it for many years.