All well and good saying it's 'how it works'. The danger is that Virgin are already known as an expensive airline and this is confirming it big time. This is just a PR disaster for them.
Frankly the product - past their sell by date 747s and 332s don't in any way justify premium fares. Tried both this year alone.
In my opinion TCX long-haul Premium Economy was a better product than VS (other than the awful T1 experience).
If they want to sell their own seats to Virgin Holidays then that's their choice but it's pretty useless for serving the business community or the independent traveller. Basically an expensive version of Thomas Cook.

Thought the A332 had a brand new interior and they are only stop gap anyway until all the new metal comes our way.
The way fares are worked is the same all way through retail industry be it rail, shops or on line, lowest prices to get people booking and
as things start to sell well up go the prices and the closer the closing date the higher they go.
The holiday market is a prime target even on Heathrow flights so you cannot ignore it.

You might also consider that the London area has more flights per destination and therefore may have a glut (I'm not saying hundreds) of seats still to be sold. Manchester has far fewer flights and therefore can, at times, command a higher price.

Yes quite right Scottie

...which perpetuates the coninuous flow of people down to London even when there are direct flights from MAN.
Not only economic madness but environmental irresponsibility.

To be fair, other airlines have been under scrutiny for sudden hikes. I remember the Liverpool Metro Mayor giving easyJet some heat when they hiked the prices up on the Liverpool-Madrid route to fares around £1,500 return as soon as it was confirmed Liverpool FC had qualified for the Champions League Final.

Yes the 747's aren't getting any younger, but they had a cabin refit a few years ago and are exiting the fleet over the next 2 years. The A330-200's won't be far behind once the neo's are delivered, but to be fair VS did spend a bit of money bringing them up to a better standard with new seats and carpets and installing PE seats.

I also highly doubt there will be many business passengers travelling to Barbados at that time of year and suspect a lot of independent travellers would have either booked months ago or are more savvy with routings, particular if they're island hopping or travelling to/from elsewhere.

Yep - sorry to conflate the Barbados specifc issue with the wider VS at MAN issue. I'm more likely to be found on the JFK or ATL routes. In particular, I've flown MAN-ATL for years. The old Delta 767s despite being long in the tooth offered a good J Class product. The VS A333s that took over the route were also pretty good. Whilst number crunchers and air enthusiasts would see the recent VS 747s as an upgrade; to the J Class passenger, it's a serious downgrade. I love the old iconic Jumbos even now as a pax but in reality they are far from a premium product in the twilight of their days.

It seems to be that with no viable competition from MAN in the foreseeable future VS will be milking it long-haul. I know its business but its not good for the travelling public. The option of flying South is a non-starter as all the beach aircraft fly from LGW and not LHR, i can fly to Sou, Edi, Ext, Inv, etc, but not to the second busiest airport in the UK, and the recent acquisition of Flybe makes that even more unlikely. So it looks like flights Stateside will be cheaper via DUB or NYC or PHL and connecting, its back to the nineties again.

I guess we'll see how things pan out in the coming months. I fully expected fare hikes in the immediate aftermath of Thomas Cook collapsing, though although I expect fares to drop it wouldn't surprise me if they don't fall to the same levels pre-Thomas Cook collapse, which as well as demand could well be a sign of whether airlines were having to sell them for less than they would have otherwise charged due to competition and the market demanding low fares.

I would argue the limited number of Upper seats is a problem with the 747 on the JFK and ATL route. I was made up last year when I booked MAN-JFK when it was initially allocated an A330 but changed to a 747 several months later, though these are both routes where Upper capacity can be increased and filled easily. The remaining 747's only have 14 Upper seats, whereas the long-gone LHR-based 747's had more and likewise with the A330's. I did VS127/128 last November and on both flights the loadings were just under 400 passengers, so on their 747's with 455 seats that's an 87% load factor - though last Winter they operated JFK and ATL on alternate days and when I was waiting for my case at MAN it was noticeable from other luggage tags how many had transferred off other DL flights at JFK.

To add to the discussion about Upper demand, I expect that to increase next year when VS open their Clubhouse lounge in the new T2 building. I have known of people to fly from LHR/LGW with their Clubhouses to get the full Upper Class experience, whereas MAN Upper passengers have to use the Escape Plus lounge instead. They will also steal a march over their TATL rivals out of MAN that don't have lounges of their own, though I think some passengers who are on the AA flights can use the BA Lounge in T3.

We'll see what loadings are like this winter given both are operating on more days and smaller aircraft are being used on some days.

Thought JFK is B744 all winter now

The plan seems to change regularly. I know before the Thomas Cook collapse some dates were changed from A332 to B744 and it wouldn't surprise me if more dates have been upgauged, though from a quick dummy booking there's definitely some dates where the allocated aircraft is A332.

Here's what I could find, but it looks like MAN-JFK will also see some A333 action and a dummy booking on one of those dates is still showing this...

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38...as-of-24jul19/

Do you mean apart from the annual New York shopping flights? I'd have thought too late otherwise?

MANTP Update #113 dated 18th October 2019 - Courtesy of the MANTP Team to whom full credit is given

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Part 2
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Quoting myself because to prove a point, MANworker has picked up on something I heard over the weekend that three dates in December will see the A346 operate MAN-ATL.