Lets face BA don`t want Manchester only the long haul pax that use it, they are quite happy to shuttle them to Heathrow but they are loosing the battle because other operators are eating into their pax and now the public have realised they don`t have to go to London to get anywhere
including South America as they can go via Madrid, Barcelona or Lisbon ( Air Portugal; going back to 2 daily) in the summer or long haul to Asia/ME and the only area that is difficult is Africa
but even that via DXB is easyish
Ian.