Yes I agree with you MANFOD, that the current management team is well on top of things, not just in their recognition of the vital nature of the two major LCCs, but also in nurturing the long haul market which is now on a path of strong growth. And MAG's success in rekindling a formerly moribund Stansted is very impressive. Well done to them!
The previous team's failures can't entirely be attributed to not recognising the LCC phenomenon. Even after it was blindingly obvious that the only growth in the short haul market was from LCCs, and that the legacy and charter markets were in serious decline, MAN pretended that it could deal with the LCCs by directing them to EMA. Of course, the key LCCs had long ago committed to LPL.
Of course you can understand their concern about not wanting to dilute revenues from legacy carriers and charter operators. But it took MAN an awfully long time to see the writing on the wall, by which time it was reduced to dealing with the 'also ran' LCCs such as bmibaby and (dare I say it) Jet2. The rest is history, but fortunately things are now on a much better footing.
Lax_lhr's observations about the breadth of MAN's traffic base is spot on. This diversity makes it much more resilient to specific events. And when our friend Bagso claims that "the Australians" are more interested in Stansted than Manchester, I would just point to the fact that MAN is a much less risky bet than STN, focussed as it is on a single demanding customer.
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