Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
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.....
I didn’t mean to come off as rude! What I meant to say was that Edinburgh is currently vastly overperforming even what they had pre-Covid. Manchester is vastly underperforming pre-covid US levels. One hopes EDI can hold on to these routes for the foreseeable but that doesn’t seem likely imo.. The routes I listed to gain back for W24 would be Aer Lingus (AA Codeshare) who have plans for large expansion anyway and United who seem a given. To be honest I think it would be better for EDI come the time Virgin have a spare A330 or two for VS to take on the Delta routes. This would largely guarantee some more ‘obscure’ ones like Atlanta to stay..