I think where most people here go wrong is that an airport is not in charge of it's destiny: it's location, history and airlines that decide it's fate... but ultimately fare paying pax
I disagree. BHX is supposed then to just sit back and wait for airlines to come to them? Long Haul destinations will automatically appear at BHX just because the runway has been extended? And how exactly do the fare paying public decide its fate in terms of routes served? It is equally as absurd as suggesting that the BHX CEO would go to an airline and beg for a route to be started that pax would go knocking on an airports door and ask for flights to a destination they would like to go to because they have a house there. Pax will only travel on it once a route is provided by the airport and airlines working togather to research viability/profitability: if sufficient numbers of pax do not materialise, then of course that route will not survive. So, once a route is launched, yes pax voting with their feet do decide its fate, but pax do not have a direct influence as you suggest on getting that route started in the first place. That is upto airlines and BHX working constructively together.
And of course I don't expect the BHX CEO to go into an airline boardroom and request that a particular route is served - I would rather hope that instead it would be the BHX route development team and that they would be going into the airlines sales, marketing and route development rooms to determine a routes potential viability. Which I still believe will be a tall order in developing long haul routes to the degree that BHX will become a viable alternative hub to LHR