Tristar & Skipness
You both make good points. What I've never understood, however, is if there's no or very little money to be made in the regions, how can Manchester for example support the following:
Emirates 2XDay to Dubai
Etihad daily to Abu Dhabi
Singapore Airlines daily to Singapore
BA daily to JFK
Delta daily to Atlanta and also daily to JFK
American daily to Chicago
Virgin daily to Orlando (I think it's daily!)
PIA (numerous flights to Pakistan)
Continental to Newark
Just the above would suggest a market for long haul travel, certainly from Manchester. Why not have a Northern hub (Manchester for example) and a Southern hub (Heathrow). Lufthansa don't seem to have too many problems operating 2 large hubs (Munich and Frankfurt) for intercontinental travel.
I live in Scotland. Where possible I will avoid Heathrow at all costs, even if it means routing via Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Paris to cross the Atlantic. The combination of a better chance of losing my bags in transit at Heathrow compared to those 3 airports, combined with the sheer congestion at Heathrow in terms of passenger numbers in a small, decrepid airport (compared to passenger numbers) makes it for me a no-brainer.