Originally Posted by Land-of-Miles
Personally I would happily get a train to MAN to start a long haul flight, rather than my normal car to LHR, if it meant I could take my normal baggage with me. I am sure I am not the only one (how many of us are taking the Eurostar and flying AF for instance? Corporate Jet usage ex LON is now up by 40% too).
So, you would rather spend 3hrs on a train to go to an airport that maybe has one or two flights a day* than go from LHR with many times that frequency of flights and spend an hour at the carousel at the other end**.
*remember the idea that serious business travellers don't use Maxjet because they only fly once a day
**note that the risk of you losing your bag will be smaller than the Virgin train failing to get you to MAN in time for your flight.