Originally Posted by
ATNotts
When BA had their base and hub at BHX it was said to be quite lucrative since the NEC and ICC attracted decent yielding passengers; I suspect that if the bean counters had wanted MAN and BHX to be profitable they could have produced figures that could have made both thus. They chose not to, and the rest is history.
They were only ‘lucrative’ back then because they routinely commanded ridiculous fares and had little in the way of direct regional competition. Neither of which is feasible nowadays.