Daz, I think we are talking about 2 separate markets here.
BHX has its strong point, and obvious larger market in Armitsar and the Punjab region.
Therefore, if we translate this into route talk, a BHX-ATQ route would trump just about any other UK and European point.
However, DELHI, and just DELHI, has a higher O&D from MAN than BHX. I will have to see if there is public link, but, the CAA have produced figures where MAN-XXX-DEL was around 75,000 pax per anum, with another 20,000 travelling over ground to other points to get to DEL.
BHX had around 56,000 BHX-XXX-DEL flights, with a leakage of around 16,000 over ground.
Now, you can quote figures for all of India as much as you like, as we all know BHX-XXX-India on the whole trumps MAN, but, I am talking about DELHI, Air India's hub and DELHI alone, not INDIA as a whole.
It is evident the market I also more sought after as DEL are offering an incentive for a carrier to start DEL-MAN, and not BHX.
Indeed Birmingham and the West Midlands has more people whos' families originated outside the UK than any other city outside London with the exception of the Chinese community where Birmingham and Manchester are equal second and Italian community which is relatively low in the West Midlands
Probably starting a bun fight here, Manchester's Chinese population is, and always has been larger than Brum's, and Im sure you will find the fact that according to Wikipedia, Manc and Brum have
exactly the same population a bit suspect? However, I will let you off as I see we are trusting the ever reliable Wikipedia, the source of 100% fact where only those in the authority can edit the entries. Oh, hang on.....
While we are on the 'trusting wikipedia' moment, I see Manchester is only 4,000 or so behind Birmingham for the size of the Indian community, hardly a stellar lead that make an India link to Brum so obvious is it?
It also shows how distorted the travel market is, because, despite the larger populations in B'hm, MAN has more Pakistan flights, had the Bangladesh flights and has a scheduled carribean flight