MAN is having a tough time, bless it.
They tried dropping prices last year but still the pax didn't come. Pax figures are down on last year for the first time in living memory. Rumour has it that prices are still not low enough for FR, and that EZY couldn't get the right slots to make their schedule work.
BA never could attract enough pax to sit in the front of their planes out of MAN, so the yield will always be too low. BA's other costs are allegedly still too high, and they are gradually withering away in T3, which is now handling other non-One World airlines e.g. WW and soon BD.
Far East and other LH carriers won't fly to MAN because their pax want to fly to London, not a regional airport.
MAN has great people but as an airport it's too complicated landside and too tortuous and congested inside the terminals, not to mention the congestion and poor state of repair of the airside area.
Compared to other up-and-coming airports like LPL and EMA, MAN can't compete for ease of use, simplicity etc., which is what passengers want. They don't want to walk past more and more silly shops, then walk miles to a gate past broken travelators, then be bussed for another 15 mins to an aircraft parked another mile away in Altrincham.
Still, they could always read Plane Talk on the way, and marvel at the senior management's latest medals and fat-cat pay rises.