Agreed. The US situation is different to the Asian one.
I agree going west we are looking at a very mature market.
There are no aggressively expanding airlines and hubs who can bankroll speculative routes in the same way.
I think this is a general misconception amongst the Middle Eastern carriers. Yes they do have the money to do spectacular things, not least EK, but remember that they are serving a growing demand which they all seem not to be meeting! A+B can't deliver planes quick enough! I don't think what they're doing is 'speculative,' more being able to meet that new demand.
Nevertheless, MAN's services by USA carriers have shown remarkable resilience through the tough times.
I don't think it's that surprising really considering what we had only a few years ago. We had far more traffic going west when the likes of BA/BD were on the scene and the US carriers using larger aircraft. There is always demand for UK-US; mainly to do with business and historical ties. I think that it seemed to fall just before the recession really took hold which really created an odd situation whereby the supply had already been reduced to meet the smaller demand.
I agree I don't think we'll see many more destinations to the US, simply because they're all pushing the 'hub' system more so than ever before. Maybe larger aircraft.
However, I did say a while back that the Boeing 787 will be the new beginning of Manchester - and I stick with that statement!
