If they do have a chip on their shoulder, it's because the South East of England is seen as the only important area of the UK - especially by those who live in the South East.
Historically, the North of England has produced by far the greater percentage the inventions, material, products and many of the people that made Britain into Great Britain yet the wealth has always been sucked to that small corner of the UK called the South East.
Geographically, the North of England has just as large a population as the South East yet is seen by those in power as not important - basically because those in power are based in London and are only interested in themselves.
When Manchester twice bid for the Olympics, very little support came from the South East - I was living in Sussex at the time - and the bids were almost an object of derision and were firmly kept as "Manchester's bids" in the public mind by government and media alike. Yet when a run down area of east London was decided upon as the venue for a London bid for the games, not only was the country as a whole urged to rally behind the bid, we were told in no uncertain terms just how important the accompanying regeneration of the area was for the country - rather strange that, when for decades, the South has maintained the North is a run down, dirty, post industrial wasteland that needs help the country can't really afford.
Of course the Commonwealth Games in 2002 showed just how well the "thick" Northerners can run something on an international scale, and a great number of the medals gained by team GB at the 2008 Olympics were generated in the swimming pools around Manchester and at the Manchester Velodrome.
As someone who spent a great deal of his working life promoting the Manchester area for incoming business travel and development, who was in regular close contact with government department policy makers at a high level and had an input to the development of the airport, and who saw at first hand how BEA/BOAC/BA tried to block every opportunity for Manchester Airport to develop its own services (which goes back well before my time), I have a close and detailed knowledge of just how the levers have been pulled to put London above, not just the North but anywhere else in the UK, whilst expecting support for London and the South East to be given by the whole country.
In the case of air travel from Manchester, just research how BEA objected to every Eagle/Cunard Eagle/British Eagle licence application from Manchester to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, was mostly successful in doing so yet refused to offer more than a few token services themselves. Check back on how BOAC drove SABENA off the New York route 11 years after the Belgians, who had faith in Manchester where London didn't, had pioneered and made a success of their operation. The same applies to BEA's work in persuading the government to deny Aer Lingus's long held and profitable fifth freedom rights through Manchester in the late 1960s.
To the proponents of Heathrow and Heathrow Airways, if you want to know just how much not just the North, but the rest of the UK would gladly be without Heathrow, just look at the success of flights from the UK to Amsterdam - many taken by people for whom Amsterdam is in the wrong direction to their final destination.
As a retired CEO I'm well aware of the need for profitable operation. Manchester will not generate volume high fare traffic for many reasons but one particular reason is the way BA and its partners and the other alliances sell their tickets to companies, either direct or through in house travel agents, with an emphasis on ensuring London departures are maintained with as large a volume of first/business class seats as possible. This includes heavy discounting of fares on connecting flights, the loading of fares on direct flights from the provinces and the offer of massive discounts on hotel rooms if an overnight is necessary in London.
As most business travellers have neither the time nor the authority to make their own arrangements and as the bottom line outcome of the deals on offer can be shown to be of financial benefit, the practice of putting as much as possible through Heathrow has been embraced by companies all over the UK. The wear and tear on the traveller due to having to make connections, miss flights or their own free time due to delays, wholesale cancellations (BA are the experts) or journey times hours longer than would be necessary on direct flights is overlooked as long as the bottom line looks OK.
In my view - now from 400 miles from Manchester - the reason this thread is always well subscribed is that people in the North, and Manchester in particular, CARE about their services. The airport company is still owned by the local authorities, rather than an unapproachable, unaccountable Spanish entity so the council tax payers are involved and want their say. They also get sick of the patronising attitude of Southerners withl little or no knowledge of the area, its history, geography or demographics who assume that all in the South is clean, tidy and comfortable and all in the North is dirty, post industrial and verging on a wasteland.
Last edited by philbky; 18th Nov 2008 at 08:45.