The terminal redevelopment is hugely welcomed but is mainly replacing existing capacity and will only provide an extra 5 million capacity or so when it is all done in 10 years time. If MAN continues to grow in the meantime quite a bit of 5m headroom may have been taken up.
MAN is 2014 is 22.6 million
MAN in 2025 projection: 30 million
Like it or not Heathrow is our biggest aviation asset and ensuring it can connect to new and emerging markets is essential for future trade and economic growth
I'd buy into that if AA and BA weren't so insistent on the need for practically hourly shuttles to JFK. If the regions have to make do with a daily service, then LHR should make do with 4 or 5 A380s. The freed up slots can then be used for the "new and emergent markets". And given this is NATIONAL boost, don't forget that when someone sneezes at LHR, BA decide to wipe out the domestic links. A surefire way to help the UK's regions, don't you think?
Regional airports just can't support those sorts of routes yet.
I'd wager they can but the reluctance of BA to operate out of MAN is probably swaying their minds as they'd be thinking "if BA can't make money out of MAN, then there's no way we can". It will also take a concerted effort to remind the BRITISH Tourist Authority and the Confederation of BRITISH Industry what the capitalised words represent and not just highlight the possibilities in Southeast England. Perhaps someone can explain why, when my mother was in hospital, a nurse who was a New Zealander had ZERO knowledge of what was within 2 hours of Manchester. If something straightforward as tourism was handicapped, one can but imagine the problems of promoting Not Southeast England for business.