Originally Posted by
Mr A Tis
I'm not sure that argument of hubbing via MAN holds water. Edinburgh has flights with Delta, United, American, Air Canada & I think Westjet. Why would anyone want to connect with the sprawling disjointed airport of Manchester.? Any Virgin flights from MAN would have to be able to stand alone without any significant reliance on connections. The two main long haul destinations unserved from MAN remain Bangkok & Delhi, with the recession looming, I don't see any carrier having the appetite for major expansion (with Ryanair being the notable possible exception)
The thing is that it was already happening in 2019 prior to the pandemic and my retirement from MAG when I was working on MAN-TP and the hub proposal. There were in that year substantial volumes connecting between Jet Airways Mumbai service and VS flights to JFK, LAX and ATL. Volumes were growing too across FlyBe on to both VS and TCX, plus surprisingly quite a lot from EI to VS, especially when seasonal peaks differed between Eire and the UK, and with Florida being poorly served from DUB. It was acknowledged that there's a good deal of work to do make MAN a better transfer experience and to get reliable minimum connecting times. That work was well progressed when Covid hit. Having now retired I am unable to say whether the transfer hub project is still extant.