The only reason the SE lacks runway capacity is because so many landing slots are taken up bringing passengers in from the regions to fly internationally out of LON. This, in turn, is due to the outright refusal of BA to consider anything other than a single international hub at LHR with a vacation-spot hub at LGW.

It's baffling, but as long as the gov't entertains the idea of spending tens of £BB on runway capacity in the SE then there will be NO efforts at developing secondary international hubs at such places as MAN, which has runway capacity to spare and 7-odd million people close to hand, many of whom would LOVE to have some international options that don't involve the obligatory LHR root canal.