I've never seen so much rubbish being posted on here. Firstly, I do understand the issues at MAN and have experienced them first hand (Admittedly I only depart Manchester twice a month).
Some of the inaccuracies posted on here-
"No new airlines want to start at MAN' - False. Jet Airways & Ethiopian are starting ops in the next few months.
'Cathay chose MAN over DUB' - Well we can't be sure on that. However, CX are increasing MAN from the A350-900 to the A350-1000 in December.
'No moving walkways working' - I feel that this is an exaggeration considering I arrived at MAN the other day and all were working (To my surprise). The escalator in arrivals is turned off with the justification being to slow the flow of passengers entering passport control. I do feel that this shows a real lack of investment in staffing by the Home Office. The E-Gates also reject a high number of passengers and are very slow in comparison to those in other countries (Did the Home Office purchase them or was it the airport?).
You'd have to be daft to consider Heathrow because Manchester takes an extra 15 minutes. Drive for 3+ hours to save 15 minutes. Logical. MAN will not be losing passenger numbers over this, people will always be tempted to go for the lowest fare, no matter which airport.
There is no doubt that MAN has some serious issues that need sorting. Have a reasonable debate, though please can we have facts rather than the inaccurate comments being posted.