Still, all hail the ME3 eh?
I see you are at it again Skip, introducing something that Bagso never mentioned. Neither did he refer to MAN for that matter. It seemed to me he was raising a perfectly reasonable question as to the implications for BA if R3 goes ahead and Easyjet get a strong foothold at LHR.
And before you accuse me of all sorts of things, personally I hope links between MAN and LHR are maintained, be it by BA or whichever, as it gives passengers another choice. (I'm as sceptical of the threats to withdraw existing connections from UK regionals as part of the LHR propaganda if R3 doesn't go ahead as I am of some of the government promises about infrastructure investment in the North to re-balance the UK economy.
For going East long haul, I wouldn't consider LHR, but my wife and I did fly BA to the west coast of America a couple of years ago using the shuttle.