I flew once or twice from Manchester to London when I had meetings in Bedfont Lakes, which is within walking distance of Terminal 4 (once you work out how to get out via the Hilton), and I live close enough to Manchester Airport that I have walked in the past. Even with all this, it wasn't a lot quicker than train given that I certainly walk to Wilmslow station.And I don't believe it's quicker, even then!
EDIT: Given the timing, when I used the flight to get to Bedfont Lakes I will have been living in central Manchester, close to Oxford Road station, within easy walk of Piccadilly station, rather than in Wilmslow as I do now. But it probably took me about the same amount of time to get from home to the airport then as now (then by taxi against the main traffic flow, now by train and hike across Manchester Airport from the station to T3).
I once went on the ridiculous Manchester-London flight; ridiculous because it tends to spend more time circling Watford than in making progress. Anyway, this was with BA but before Terminal 5 had been built. When we landed it was announced that we were going to a stand at Terminal 2, rather than the planned Terminal 1. This confused the ground staff so we had to wait 15 minutes before we could get off. In the interim I watched a coffin being offloaded from the cargo hold. I was sitting next to someone who was going to central London, I think for the first time, so I probably said something like "if I were you, I'd go by train next time".
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