A way WOULD be found by shifting someone less glamorous along a few stands.
I've often wondered whether BA and BD have some kind of long-term deal with BAA to exclusively, or almost exclusively, use stands 6, 9 and 10 which are conveniently close to their respective lounges. They certainly seem to have first call on these stands when needed. If they do have such an arrangement, then it might not be easy for BAA to move them to other stands and thereby make available the former stand 6A or the former diagonal stand between stands 11 and 14 for larger long-haul aircraft. If I were BA or BD, and I if had a long-term deal for these stands, then I would be very reluctant to renegotiate any such deal when the consequence might be to lose passengers (that would otherwise route long-haul via LHR) to a direct long-haul flight from EDI. Maybe I’m putting two and two together and getting five? Maybe there is no such arrangement? As a casual observer it would appear that there may well be.
Conspiracy theorists and cynics might look at the weak PCNs linking the SE apron to taxiway alpha, the previous abolition of stands 6A and the stand between 11 and 14, the almost exclusive use that BA and BD have to the stands that block the use of these potential large widebody stands (even if they were reinstated) and the general lack of investment in suitable international/long-haul facilities at EDI and conclude that, despite all the fine words, EDI has never really been serious about attracting long-haul and that they are instead looking after their own interests and those of their biggest clients at LHR (BA and BD) by trying to route as many passengers as possible via LHR. The benefits of this to BA, BD and their respective alliance partners are obvious. In the case of BAA they get two lots of airport “taxes” and two opportunities to get passengers into their shopping malls instead of one. I’m more inclined to believe that the situation at EDI is the long term result of government and then BAA policies in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s (and possibly right up until the competition commissioner started his investigations), some of which have been touched on by others earlier in this thread. Having said that, some of the more recent BAA decisions have been puzzling to say the least, such as abolishing stand 6A before strengthening the taxiways to the SE apron, and not creating a dedicated walking route between some international contact stands and the immigration hall; this often results in an aircraft not being able to board passengers when another is disembarking and vice versa.
If anyone is interested, the EDI parking/docking chart can be found via this link;
NATS | AIS - Home . Note that, at EDI, the gate numbers are not the same as the stand numbers.