I do tend to agree....... MAN doesn't want FR back particularly after what happened last time.
In terms of passengers, it doesn't matter whether they are business or leisure. Excellent citations re: business and first class capacity out of MAN these days but a good deal of that traffic won't be business related and we should remember that, there are some very affluent areas on MAN's door step after all. To the airport itself though, business travellers probably don't spend as much as many would have us believe. On the forum of another website is a guy spouting about how AF will be deterring it's business travellers by moving to T3 due to lack of ammenities. In actual fact it is probably the charter and leisure passengers who are the ones who spend at the airport. Even in this day and age the airport experience is part of the holiday to many so people will often eat there, buy shed loads of magazines for the 2 hour flight to PMI aswell as buying tax free etc etc