Bagso - Maybe APD hurts the sums too much for it to look a profit priority for EK.
My understanding is that passengers flying THROUGH any potential stop in the UK don't attract APD. However, any passenger flying just MAN to USA or vice-versa would of course attract APD just as they would on any existing carrier.
I tend to agree that the EK brand would work wonderfully MAN to USA point to point.
Not so sure it would work very well the other way round. EK really is not a massive brand in much of the US.
Interesting theoretical question is without the burden of APD putting many carriers off launching new routes in and out of the UK, would EK or QR already have launched a flight like this instead of from other non APD burdened countries??