I honestly dont agree with you I think lba can co exist with man. There is a huge west of ireland community in the north of england and a knock connection has been looked for for a long time.
I would say the airport offer a deal of some sort to lure airlines onto routes and I would imagine that they wouldnt be handing out money for one route to lose another .
I would not be surprised if Aer lingus took up the man route should baby go ,I dont think fr would let anybody else operate a bhx service since they have a base there. Im sure this has been discussed already and a plan is in place.
In times like these its about getting growth and in fairness to knock they have been adding to their list of destinations whilst others have been loosing them. However they need to be careful not to put all their eggs in the one basket with regard to Ryanair.