Logohu, I won't copy all your earlier post 6017 but you offer some excellent points. It makes for sombre but in my view realistic reading. Just to add one or two comments about the UK-US market.
It was reported elsewhere that it wasn't just MAN that was seeing a fall on US routes in the Spring and the CAA provisional stats tend to confirm that.
Routes from LHR where pax numbers fell compared to May'15 were BOS, JFK, EWR, PHL, LAX, SFO IAH & DEN with decreases ranging from 2% to 16% (BOS). There were increases on some US routes however.
BHX saw a slight reduction to New York overall in May with AA gaining at the expense of UA.
It's interesting though that this year UA carried more pax on EWR from BHX than MAN, the reverse of the previous 2 years when MAN's monthly figure exceeded BHX by 500-600 pax.
I'm sure you are right about the impact of TCX, and UA at MAN will probably also have been affected by competition from DL to NY, especially as UA still operate with a narrow body a/c.
Olton Pete has also highlighted the poor ORD and PHL figures so there's little to add.
A couple of more optimistic comments: - If one takes the previous US exchange rate as $1.5 = £1, then it hasn't yet fallen 20% fortunately, more like 13%. Still bad enough for UK holiday makers and I must say if we hadn't booked a Florida holiday earlier in the year for this winter, we might have been looking for a cheaper alternative!
Now I know some feel that seat plans are not reliable and shouldn't be commented on but I still believe that what they show say 30 minutes before departure is a pretty good reflection of loads, even though we don't know specifics about free upgrades, airline staff on board etc. On that basis, I would suggest that loads from MAN in the last few weeks on the USB3, as we would hope and expect at this time of year, have been much improved. Some flights looked to be totally full and others with just a hand full of business class and the odd economy seat available. This despite some high fares and with TCX flying to MIA, LAX, BOS and JFK (as well as LAS and MCO).
No doubt the CAA stats will eventually give us a clearer picture for the summer.