Around the time the original CityFlyer was up for sale (late 90’s) Mr B objected to BA buying them. There was speculation he wanted them with all the established routes but nothing came of it.
Let’s be honest. The majors (including VS) and the airports want international customers through their hubs ie Yanks (no offence intended) coming to Europe via Heathrow. Therefore they will only be interested in pax going to major EU destinations rather than a full short haul network including people traveling between EU destinations. That is more the realm of loco’s these days.
Therefore I don’t really see much opportunity for him to set up a regional airline unless he wants to start competing with the BA network and the loco’s. Sounds like more money down the drain to me.

Colleagues who don’t want to be there and do ****** all every day plus the managers who don’t have the balls to do anything about them 🙁

Thanks All
My girl now rests permanently down by her daddies shed where she always like to be.

Don
Sorry to hear your news. Had to let my girl go last night so I know only too much today how much it hurts. At least I had a chance to say goodbye.

Well LGW – LBA was certainly profitable for the original CityFlyer back in the 90’s. However we did that one with an ATR42 with one crew member down the back.
I remember well trying to find a way to incorporate a bar service with hot meal and tea and coffee on a sometimes very short sector time. I do remember asking the front crew on one occasion if I could have more time to secure the cabin and forcing a go around as I wasn’t ready. I think that was with about 35 pax rather than the 48 we could have taken.
With the right aircraft size, right number of crew with a sensible service level it could still be a popular route. Keep it simple would be my suggestion.
For my money one of the best views out of the window in the morning for the crew – green fields and sheep grazing. Won’t tell my missus though as I’m in Yorkshire at the moment and saying how much I like Sussex to a girl from Yorkshire! South Downs over Yorkshire Moors for me I’m afraid 🙂

So we’ve had drought, we’ve got floods, what next? Fire or plague! Please not an outbreak of pests like flies in the summer.

If we ever see you flying anything pink we’ll know you got lucky (?) Moggy! Katie lives just a couple of miles up the road from us. Everything we see her driving around in she’s had resprayed bubble gum pink.

As GarryR has said, I don’t think they really had any other choice in the circumstances. However I’m inclined to think as John G has suggested that they made sure they made the most out of it to get the message out to any would be terrorists.
Having said that was it the authorities that have made a fuss or was it the press themselves that were just having a field day? I don’t seem to recall this sort of interest in scrambles during the cold war. I presume F4’s went supersonic over land when scrambled?