So this is my view on it:
1) All the Thomas Cook Slots have been allocated to other operators.
2) MAN already struggle with stands, the amount of times we’ve seen long haul aircraft arrive and wait in taxiways in the early morning.
3) If BA do start Ops from MAN this effectively takes away business from their London Ops. - and taking pax from the Shuttle Services that connect ex LHR.
4) They already have so many different crew on so many contracts, to which they will already be trying to streamline, for example the World and Euro Fleets at LHR they’ll be wanting to streamline into Mixed Fleet in the future. Adding a so called ‘Manchester Fleet’ could add to the multitude of contracts they have. Although I suspect if it does happen, it would be a Mixed Fleet contract.
I believe crew used to operate LHR-JFK-MAN-JFK-LHR when BA had Ops out of MAN, and so this could be brought back to stop the need to add another ‘fleet’ should they start Ops. For longer range flights I suspect they could dead head crew from London.
5) LHR and LGW both have a multitude of airlines to codeshare with and both airports have BA shorthaul flights to connect onto. MAN just has a small handful to which customers could connect on to. Remember AA are OneWorld and their JFK and ORD isn’t operating now.
6) If this was to happen this would be direct competition for Virgin, so expect JFK/LAX and possibly LAS and maybe some Caribbean, but wouldn’t expect a massive route map ie. China and the Far East, to which BA only operate 1 daily frequency to some destinations, as Far East passengers prefer to travel with local based carriers.
Would be good to see though!