As far as I can remember CX wanted to operate a service from HKG to MAN via SVO but the Russians werent having any of it!

Don’t think it was Russians objecting. Might have been a British airline (but not BA :eek:) Flight duration would be much, much worse operating MAN-SVO-HKG than MAN-LHR-HKG but this is where the “hidden hand of BA” comes in….they’d prefer it that way, rather than have a 2 or 3 weekly non-stop MAN-HKG service operating by CX which has the possibility of affecting the codesharing on MAN-LHR (assuming CX remember to promote the MAN service, unlike last time round when they concentrated on the shuttle codeshare whilst still operating thier metal to MAN!)