"I wouldn't place too much emphasis on the runway extension either"
I remember working at BA in the 90's when words to similar effect were used by Senior management at a briefing I attended when the word EasyJet was mentioned.......as I stated in my post the extension does not mean that BHX will now be automatically considered as well as MAN by airlines looking to launch regional UK long haul (I bet CX didn't give BHX even a cursory glance or seriously consider them an an alternative to MAN). However the fact remains that if the same series of Beijing charter flights had been planned 2 or 3 years ago, they would have by default gone to MAN. The BHX runway extension has opened up choice to air lines and that means BHX (for now) has gained a competitive advantage over MAN. A bit like MAN has over BHX with it's EasyJet base!