Originally Posted by
GrahamK
I'd have said BHX was a bigger market to India.
Few quotes which answer this question - taken from anna.aero (see link below) and probably explains the supposed motivation for VS/Jet to look into MAN-BOM/DEL:
> “Manchester is Europe’s largest unserved market to/from Mumbai,” states Robert Smith, Head of Aviation Development at Manchester Airport. “In fact the airport is second only to Heathrow in terms of total O&D traffic for UK to India.”
> “In total O&D traffic, Manchester-Mumbai ranks third behind Heathrow and Paris CDG, and way ahead of several routes that have direct services, e.g. Frankfurt, Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich and Istanbul,” concludes Smith.
> “Excluding Sydney [which cannot be reached in one sector], Mumbai is the second largest unserved market from Manchester [Bangkok being the biggest],” confirms Smith. In 2016, the market witnessed 74,000 indirect passengers, plus 73,000 surface leakage to Mumbai from Manchester’s two-hour catchment area (IATA Airport IS and CAA Survey 2016).
http://www.anna.aero/2017/04/12/manchester-mumbai-is-skyscanner-unserved-route-of-the-week/