There would need to be a good reason for them not to put the IAH flight through FRA too.
Star partners LH and UA are already double daily FRA-IAH (LH on A380/748i). And FRA is slot constrained (Sorry that's three good reasons
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Manchester is quite important for Star as well
True - without too much effort Star members LH, SK, SN, LX and others could feed into the MAN-IAH-MAN sectors quite nicely. Even though oil is currently in the doldrums there must still be some IAH traffic from ABZ, as well as other UK points, that could just as easily connect through MAN as elsewhere. Particularly now that Little Red are axing their feeders to SQ's LHR flights. A SQ/FlyBe code share similar to the deal struck by CX perhaps ?
Yes this SQ Moscow rumour sounds far fetched, but who'd have thought even 6 months ago that EK would switch an A380 from FCO to MAN !! SQ has a massive and loyal following wherever they fly, but the MEB3 plus TK have been turning up the heat at MAN for a long time now. Throw in a CX nonstop to HKG as well, and surely there must come a time when SQ has to either react or retreat ??