If they could make more money flying out of MAN, they'd sell up LHR and move North, not everyone is clinging onto them for prestige like the old school African and Far East carriers used to.
Thats the thing though isn't it. A route out of the regions HAS to pay , it is scrutinzed and picked over, how much Business class, how much cargo how many wearing pink jumpers blah blah blah , and yet i commented on the LHR thread that the new Philippine airlines service to manila carried an avarage load of just 70 people during the month of november and this is a 5 times weekly 777-300. That is just one i looked at i'm sure there are lots more. I know PAL are not in an alliance but as most know other airlines will fly half empty out of LHR to just to fulfil the HUB commitment. To create a ' mini hub' at MAN would not be the answer, you would just create the same problem . More point to point would work , no doubt, BUT the alliances want you to fly from LHR to try and fill all the over capacity there. I think that is what skipness was implying when he said MAN-xyz
meant to be more expensive than MAN-LHR-xyz.