Good argument bagso, point taken but MAN is measurably not as vital to the UK economy as LHR, that's a metric that should be clear. MAN should be the powerhouse of the greater region, pulling in as it always has traffic from Scotland and surrounding regions.
However that potential is massively limited without the critical mass of a based hub carrier, like LH has at MUC. For reasons covered ad nauseaum, that's....unlikely! So it's about criticality of scale, and realistically, that's unachievable as things stand. MAN is a critical spoke on many hubs but what UKPLC needs is an onshore hub as part of the national transport strategy. * pauses for laughter all round to stop
And yeah, Saudia, interesting one, fair play!
And again, I do not consider MAN to have flaky credentials, it's the airlines that are not considering it for the role you propose, not me.
Are Virgin expanding into MAN-JFK/EWR? BA rebuilding a hub? No, as sadly, nowadays, they can't beat the competition. Though I suspect BA could run a B788 on MAN-JFK if they actually did have a non LHR biased JV with AA.
MAN doesn't connect all those domestic destinations, it's customer airlines do, and until you get a seamless connection/brand/alliance experience, you cannot maximise out that potential. However that sounds like BA Connect and that didn't work too well. However it will be tried again I am sure and good luck to who ever cracks it.