Lufthansa: why the focus on freight only a/c, plenty of capacity in the belly of LH's regular flights. Have LH 777F's turned up at anywhere other than DSA - how many flights? Also, nobody's mentioned yet that Doncaster has been feeding fresh produce into the supermarkets supply chains for many years, so they are an obvious choice.
The Northern Powerhouse stuff is just - well. Is DSA not in the north, does EMA not serve the north or does some mythical line say it's not 'north' enough? This point of view looks very odd from any other northern point than Manchester (and you wonder why other cities are suspicious of Manchester dominance of the NP).
The situation is that Manchester's regular widebody freight business dropped to such an extent that it no longer become viable - stands weren't available and the equipment/staffing resource just wasn't justified, especially when there are other airports in the group who were capable of picking up any passing trade. That's clearly group policy, and any critics on the perftrmance of individual teams needs to put up or shut up.
Is there a long term shift in the business reducing pax numbers and increasing the number of widebocy pure freighters? How much money are you prepared to spend on it? If MAN isn't going to be stand constrained for pax business and there is a long term, regular demand for widebody pure freighters, maybe the policy will change and the money will be spent. But otherwise they are better off spending the money on the terminals than chasing the odd, irregular charter.