Originally Posted by
laviation
Yes, at a time of the pound's historic low and the obvious increase in inbound tourism. The Pound will recover. Edinburgh will imho thus shed some of these routes. Manchester will regain Boston, EWR, possibly Chicago, Philadelphia by W2024 anyways so that leaves just Washington and Calgary from your list? EDI lacks the huge population & thus outbound demand of the North West area. Manchester in Summer 17 had directs to PHL, ORD, JFK, YVR, YYZ, LAS, MCO, LAX, SFO, SEA, ATL among others.. That demand has not gone away.
Let's not do the "my airport deserves long haul more than yours does".....but having said that, there's no announcement or anything on sale out of MAN from AA/DL/UA on their own metal. When you say BOS/EWR/ORD/PHL are due back by winter 2024, well there's nothing beyond aspirational fluff from marketing types and
PR execs to back that up just yet. Demand for new aircraft will be fought over internally and I think MAN will see some US legacies back, but to say what you said is wrong. The demand is still there as you say, but the outbound demand to the US is unbalanced, MAN is not a "must see tourist destination" in the same mould as Scotland/Ireland is for visiting US tourists. Sure there's loads of outbound UK POS, but Delta consciously gave that to Virgin to cut costs and American screwed themselves from 4 routes down to none, which I suspect was someone's plan for a BA codeshare all along. I reckon MAN-EWR will come back soon, but we don't need to attack each other simply because one team is remarkably doing well. Sometimes momentum matters a lot, just don't let it cannibalise existing success and eat itself.
I well remember MAN's (Gil Thomson's?) comment that Scotland didn't even need it's own transatlantic flights as that was what MAN was there for.....