I was thinking more of other industries "FDF" not other airlines !
Asda, Tesco, Aldi etc go to the market, they analyse where demand is and meet that by placing a method of delivery convenient to what the customer wants !
OK I fully appreciate that whilst feasible you cannot run services from say New York - Norwich or Inverness - Dubai BUT if you are having a review /discussion about strategy then looking at where passengers reside and where they wish to fly to/from would not be unreasonable.
Quoting MAGs own figures 50% of the population is within 2 hours of MAN, OK various factors skew that, there are of course other airports offering alternatives, LBA, LIV, EMA etc and the population that is within MANs catchment area is completely different in terms of spend, affluence etc to London so it is far from a true analogy BUT it is still massive market and MAN is at its core !
I agree Governments have little influence of dictating where passengers fly BUT I still maintain that it should have been part of the Davies remit to look more at the dynamics of the market especially with regard pricing and how that market can be distorted !
In any other industry "direct point of sale" results in a lower price, within the airline industry it doesn't !