I flew into Manchester with CX back in the summer and noticed at least 15 other people from the same flight on my train up to Edinburgh. I was pretty surprised to see that many people - I can imagine that most folk would connect in Frankfurt, Heathrow or elsewhere and avoid the 3.5 hour train journey north and 2 hour wait. I'm sure that between O&D traffic and connections to mainland China, Australia etc, CX could sustain a 3x weekly service year-round. I'm sure I read a while back that the Dublin flight is doing especially well with connections into Mainland China, so I can imagine that a CX service be a much better fit than HU for inbound Chinese tourists.
For the Hainan flight, I guess we'll have to wait and see what the numbers say. The flight arrival/departure times at both ends, poor connections into mainland China and 1x weekly frequency can't be helping it. (Yes I know there's the option to go via Dublin, but this means a 4am arrival and a 3 hour wait until you even leave for Edinburgh!) I had a quick look on Expertflyer about 30 minutes before this morning's flight took off and I think there must have been not much more than 120 seats taken. I hope the service pulls through but it's certainly off to a rocky start it seems.