BA always said that the reason they dropped the route was because "there is no call for longhaul travel from the regions"
Really? I dare you to supply a link to a named source from BA saying this. BA simply need to feed everything through their main hub to make it pay and not fragment the market by competing with themselves. People on here love comparing apples and pears!
If MAN-JFK was such a fecking goldmine then explain why Delta just dumped it till next summer then?