Not for the first time, Bloomberg gives us good coverage and does refer to 'mainland' China and our CX flights to HK.
Manchester Gets First Mainland China Flights With Hainan Air - Bloomberg Business
The article also mentions comments by Charlie Cornish:
"Cornish said in an interview that he aims to encourage Hainan to offer flights to Shanghai which, like Beijing, is visited by about 100,000 people a year from Manchester’s catchment area. The airport is also targeting services to Bangkok and Los Angeles or San Francisco, and aims to attract further flights by Persian Gulf carriers, he said".
I'm slightly surprised if he said LAX
or SFO, given that TCX are starting LAX 2 x weekly from next year.
BKK is no surprise as a couple of years ago it was second only to New York in terms of under-served or unserved long haul routes according to some data by MAN. It was, and probably still is, a significant onward destination for pax on EK's MAN flights. I wonder which other Persian Gulf carriers he has in mind. Oman perhaps, or Jordanian?