Rapidman you talk absolute rubbish mate. First of all, by MAN's 3rd birthday there will be 6 based aircraft. Granted this expansion has not been as quick as other bases in previous years but the reason for this can be explained very easily. First and foremost, the rate of aircraft deliveries has been slowing down. Secondly, and the first point compounds this, the Continental bases are currently more profitable than the UK bases other than LGW. This means that MAN has had to compete for aircraft as opposed to being given them blank cheque style. This is one of the reasons why EMA was closed, to feed MAN.
MAN, as a base, has pioneered the long distance network. On the day of the actual GB takeover Easy inherited MAN-TFS, MAN-HER and MAN-PFO smashing the previous "3 hour ethos". Not only have these flights become very lucrative they have also spearheaded an increase in "mid haul" flying right across the network. Furthermore, MAN earns alot of onboard revenue.......the most out of all the bases no less.
MAN has never been on the critical list, performance has always been good. It just hasn't seen the fast expansion that everyone anticipated and i've covered the reasons why. Even so, from a few of routes and 1 based aircraft to 22 routes and 6 aircraft by it's 3rd Birthday, MAN is successful and will be the only UK base other than LGW to see real expansion in the near/mid term future.