Frank
Manchester has been linked by direct flight to India by wait for it
Singapore Airlines, British airways AND Air India in the nineties
Singapore routed two for the original three weekly flights via Bombay (Mumbai)
British airways routed one weekly flight to Hong Hong via each of Delhi and Bombay (Mumbai) till they gave up the later to Cathay.
Air India flew three times a week on a multi stop A310 via Rome/Delhi and Bombay however the GOI at the time enforced them to CLOSE the A310 Europe operations because they wanted them to concentrate on Middle East "slave" operations !
Right now the issue is still with Indian politics Air India seem hellbent on throwing money at route like Bangalore- SFO in the hope they get some yield from those IT experts
Jet and Etihad are virtually indistinguishable indeed a significant element of the Jet 77w long haul fleet (that might be deployed on a Manchester service) is actually based in Abu Dhabi operating Etihad flights !
The alternative A333 fleet is surprisingly small just enough for the Scissors Hub over Amsterdam , whilst just 3 A332 remain primarily for South East Asia regional and cargo uplift. Simply put Jet no longer has the spare capacity to even consider an extra LHR if they were to stumble on a few slots at the back of the couch !
Abu Dhabi is the de facto Jet long Haul Hub with Amsterdam and KLM feed a close second
So the case is the PDEW numbers suggest a Mumbai could support none stop flights however for Air India their hub is now up north and they wouldn't want to weaken Birmingham and for Jet they do what the Arab paymasters tell them.
Result Manchesters reliance of foreign carriers for long haul here is stymied.
Could Virgin Atlantic be the long shot ? (Na still up against the Delta/KLM/Etihad current love in !)
Think it's seems a tough nut to crack !