Personal opinion - Admitted copy and paste of my comments in another place.
Why Hainan are playing Chinese whispers !
Reports of twitters are clear evidence of the potency of those
With HU releasing new routes everywhere BUT the UK and todate in 2015 the ONLY Chinese growth to the UK being China Eastern going daily and AirChina moving their second flight out of the usual waiting rooms, it certain there is more going on politically - Whitehall or Beijing who knows but the UK as a whole is not getting preferential treatment is it ?
Add to the play by Hainan go to their site and the side banner offers are from both Manchester and Heathrow prominently flashing (via Brussels).
Clearly they planned to be in this market RIGHT NOW but are be being prevented.
Further go to the interactive route map - they have added the Birmingham charter route - but try to get the scheduled and book - You can't -they will also route you via SN and Brussels.
Next visit the ACL slot site and you will find HU DO have Manchester slots post 2nd September-these haven't been handed back !
IMO the UK elections may have something to do with the delays and its likely the revised bi-laterals haven't been ratified yet.
So i suspect none of the prime candidates i.e. Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham has any form of official designation at the current point in time !
With a September/October or Winter schedules there is yet still time for 2015.