Originally Posted by
MAN777
ATNotts
WOW thats quite a reply, thanks for spending time to thoroughly explain your views.
I think its obvious that the big drop in freight carried is because the underbody freight didnt fly because the flights were grounded. The figure is no shock to anybody and the addition of a few daily 747Fs would make little difference to the figures.
As soon as the flights start up the tonnage will rise again.👍
You sound like an office based stats man to me ?
Have you ever actually been airside during a dedicated 747F turnaround ? If you had you would know its not just a case of parking an aircraft for an hour. The dedicated ground equipment and staffing levels required are very different from a passenger flight. Also the staging areas for freight on freight off require a lot of concrete. Establishing all this for a few movements a day is not cost effective, if it was profitable MAG would have continued to support freighter OPs at MAN
MAG is simply keeping its house in order matching trimmed assets to supply most profitable return, it will be interesting to see how the proposed THG operation pans out.
Actually not office based, or a qualified "stats man" but I am interested in statistics since I know that they can be made to fit almost whatever narrative they are intended to underpin. Did however spend too many years in logistics and saw how the air cargo business changed, and have observed large cargo aircraft being turned around and certainly turning around a 747 in all cargo config in a hour would be nigh on impossible.
MAG will have made a decision that passengers are their route to maximising profitability at Manchester, although I suspect they might have some moments of self doubt during the last 12 weeks or so. And it may not just be MAG, obviously it's the handling agents that have to be staffed up for cargo handling, and if they've taken a conscious decision not to invest money in cargo handling large scale all cargo operations ain't about to happen. The management at EMA must be pretty happy they puts their eggs into the cargo basket, since passnger flight completely stopped for about 10 weeks.