When there are announcements from the UK chancellor, various news sources and Hainan themselves that MAN will start, do we not have a right to wonder why the services have not started?
Have to agree with LAX on this. I suppose the first question is: has something gone wrong in the last stages of finalising a deal with Hainan? If it has, why has that happened and could it have been avoided?
If, as suggested, the start up has simply been deferred until winter, the confidence level for those of us who are simply enthusiasts of it actually happening I suspect might be lower than it was originally, when it was based on all those announcements and comments LAX referred to.
It might also be interesting to know whether MAN and the various tourist and marketing organisations made a similar push for charters to MAN in the past, or whether it wasn't considered necessary because of the expectation of a scheduled service starting. I imagine doing business in China must require different diplomatic skills and protocol compared to most of Europe and the USA for example.
Anyway, credit to Birmingham and the agencies involved in securing a significant increase in the charter program for this summer. I would be surprised if both MAN & BHX could support scheduled flights to mainland China in the immediate future so understandably, given the competitive nature of the two airports in certain respects, I'm hoping MAN will still get them first.
Meanwhile, fingers crossed that the CX figures hold up and we see an increase to daily flights before too long.