BACsuperVC10: I completely respect your personal travel choices. Each to their own. But your posting record makes clear your deep dislike of all things Manchester Airport, and your passionate advocacy for Liverpool Airport. That is fine, but it does mean that you are unrepresentative of typical customers across the NW. For you, there is added value in avoiding use of MAN at all costs (and fair enough if that is your preference). But others will prioritise journey cost, duration, and the likelihood of disruption. In my experience, Cross-Country rail services are extraordinarily expensive, highly prone to delays and journey curtailments, and time-consuming even in ideal conditions. FlyBe MAN-EXT was always a great option for me, and the route supported upto four Q400's per day - so there must have been a reasonable level of demand there. If not, even half of that frequency (morning and evening) allows for a full business day at destination and implies greater concentration of loadings. Twice daily on weekdays would seem to be the best compromise solution to serve but not saturate the market as we gradually re-emerge from Covidworld. Having said all that, I don't recall the consistently lightly-loaded flights which you allude to when I used the original FlyBe services. Perhaps I used peak flights?