You must also remember that an awful lot of freight that passes through the cargo centre (or whatever it is called this week) never goes near an aircraft at Manchester. Instead it gets consolidated with other loads to get cheaper rates and is then trucked off to somewhere else - LHR, Brussels, Amsterdam for instance. This was certainly true in the heyday of flown freight mentioned by Lord 24R; it was estimated then that in addition to the flown freight figures, the transit sheds handled as much as 50% more which came in on a vehicle and left on another and I'm sure this still happens. And of course there will be an unidentifiable amount of air freight from the NW region which goes straight to London or European Airports on a truck for consolidation without even coming through the airport.
I believe that when BA Cargo had their 747 freighter ops at Stansted, most of the freight arrived on a truck, having already been put into pallets and containers at Heathrow...Now of course the Qatar service at STN is done in cahoots with BA
Freight forwarders will look for the best rates for their consignments and route them accordingly. Freight doesn't mind which airport it goes from; the people involved just want to get their goods to their destination on time and at the cheapest possible rate. In addition as pwalhx has stated on here several times, the economic crisis forced manufacturers and logistics companies to seek new and cheaper ways of doing things and much of what once went by air now goes by sea.
Having a good airport operation capable of supporting freight is what matters for the airlines - as we all know the goods carried in the belly-hold of wide bodies makes an important contribution to the economics of the route. And that's what Manchester has. It can use this as a selling point to when pitching for new services and increased frequencies. In addition, if Manchester can't be a*rsed about freight, why is the airport developing the Logistics Hub as part of the Airport City? It won't all be focused on airfreight but it's an important component of it.
I'm sure that MAG will have it's priorities on how air freight can be encouraged at its airports and will do what is best for the business overall. If the airlines are happy, the freight community is happy and both are making a living, does it really matter whether it is flown from Manchester or not?
By the way 24R, the apron has often been used for short term car parking in the past - Cathay used to carry lots of large cars on their freighter 747s
