Very pleased by this VS/DL announcement. MAN-NYC in particular has been a real concern in recent times with just two B752's per day serving the route. This limited capacity has resulted in extremely high fares which further suppress the inherent demand for the route. A vicious circle has become established. However, from Summer 2015 we will have the daily Delta B763 and the new Thomas Cook A330 schedules in addition to whatever American and United decide to offer to New York. This additional capacity will take the Manchester - New York route back to levels which the airport has successfully supported in the past.
By the way, I'm surprised by the negative comments regarding deployment of Virgin A333's to MAN. I flew on G-VUFO quite recently and was impressed by the aircraft's interior and the service provided on board. I can't imagine why customers would be scurrying away to avoid this product. And if Virgin's new initiatives work well from MAN … with the support of Delta network connections stateside … VS seems far better placed to expand its future operations ex-MAN than Delta would be.
The jury is now out to see how other Transatlantic carriers respond. In particular, American / US Airways. Will MAN-CLT return? Will the combined carrier retain its four MAN routes? If MAN can hold on to these (plus the two UAL B752 operations) we finally have a chance to reverse the decline of MAN-USA capacity which can be traced all the way back to the loss of BMI's A332's and the daily BAW B763.
The bulk of MAN's long-haul good news has been coming from points East lately. It is satisfying to see signs of life returning to the North Atlantic market again.