I do see however that the ever petty and pathetic Paul Kehoe from BHX has already started his whinging.
He has claimed several times in the past the Manchester 'prostitutes itself' and that it mainly gets routes due to 'deep pockets'. He has now claimed that Manchester only got the Beijing route due to a £12million subsidy. Completely unprofessional and as said, utterly petty and pathetic. Notice that despite everything, Manchester bosses have never risen to his style of public whinging.
Being the only major airport still in public hands (having got away somehow without being privatised in the same way the likes of BHX has) I suppose you could say that MAN leaves itself open to such (so far as I can see) unsubstantiated allegations.
I guess however that because of the blatant promotion of Manchester and "the North" by senior government ministers, especially the one who just happens to be a local MP - and holds the nation's purse strings - there is going to be a certain amount of sour grapes, not only from the Midlands, but also the Northeast and Southwest. Mr. Kehoe, for his sins, does appear to like sounding off in public.
The proof of the viability of PEK/MAN will rest in whether it lasts beyond the end of the "new customer discounts" that will undoubtedly have been given to Hainan as part of the deal - most airports these days seem to do deals, and nobody is going to tell me that Manchester is any different in that regard.
For what it's worth, I fully expect the route to thrive, and probably be operating at increased frequency, unless there is some tremendous, not to mention serious (for the UK economy's) political or economic change.