It's not a case of "how much would it cost" to base 4 B777s at MAN, it's more of "where will we make the most money by utilising these most mobile of assets"?
JFK is a good point, huge point to point opportunity that BA mucked up because of their own internal schizophrenic London centric view. Nowadays they also have the AA JV! However Hong Kong and Singapore would have no feed at the UK end and HKG would rely on CX who are not the most co-operative of Oneworld partners. The QF hub at SIN has been wound up as QF cut their (alleged) losses and palmed some ops to Jetstar and spooned quietly with Emirates instead.
Same issue, they'd be sandwiched between Singapore who have a huge hub at SIN and the loss of Qantas feed. It's geography as much as anything nowadays. Let BA concentrate on markets where they have a fighting chance.
BA are profitable not loss making, market share is useless if it's loss making. The idea of a long haul hub fed by Flybe out of MAN is a non starter as the economies of scale just aren't there. Aside from JFK and maybe LAX, most long haul destinations suggested are at a competitive disadvantage as say, SQ has feed beyond SIN. Genuine point, if it was "glaringly obvious", if that profitable market niche was capable of being done with a good return, some clever and able person would have run the numbers, presented a business case and made it happen. It does not follow that because LHR is busy, moving assets to MAN is profitable. You would then need to argue for additonal capital investment (new aircraft) to run that operation, something which in the cut throat environment across the pond, seems that the numbers did not add up.
Remember BA need all those GLA/EDI/MAN/NCL/BHD/DUB/LBA punters to fill cabins out of LHR.
Last edited by Skipness One Echo; 6th Jan 2015 at 18:49.