Happy New Year Skip.
Glad you are back and thanks for providing the opportunity to respond.
Thanks! Keep fighting your corner as ever Bagso !
Are we conflating cargo as main deck and lower deck together? Main deck cargo remains a VERY challeging environment, so much so that Air France are getting out and even Singapore see no point in replacing their B744Fs as the B77Ws can take up the slack. With Cathay operating B77Ws on HKG-MAN I don't think the freighters will be back soon.
Also one thing is sure in aviation, it comes in
bubbles, feast or famine, one year everyone is off to Madrid or Prague, next year no one is even offering the destination.
MAN and STN are two remarkably different business models, STN remains overwhelmingly Ryanair with some lashings of others and some proper freight with FedEx, Cargolux, Qatar, Asiana and anyone else who won't pony up for an off peak LHR slot. Any long haul carrier offering STN will have to bring something amazing to the table to succeed, only Emirates is, in my view, a medium term possibility.
As for China, one never knows for better or worse, but their stock market is crashing as we type. That's the thing about bubbles, they go pop and leave you covered in goo.
China share trading halted after 7% plunge - BBC News