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you makes some interesting points about the demographic and there is some truth in that!
I also agree that it will never be a major international hub with LHR around the conner and a single runway, but there is long haul opportunities and the owners have done sone excellent work since the acquired it, whilst many will see it as just more shops, the whole approach to security is a lesson to many airports on how it should be done, with staff that are 99.9% of the time civil,friendly even!
uk border agency is still a bottleneck when arriving although that area is being increased in size at present, in a nut shell it is far better than STN MAN EMA from a customer experience
Flybe are leaving because they need the £20m from Easy more than they need LGW