Originally Posted by
roverman
Oh boy, diversions and ad hoc cargo again. This one will never go away, it seems.
I think Skipness 1F came closest in his assessment of the situation. I was part of the MAN Ops team for many years up to 2020. The airport runs a remarkably tight ship in terms of the ATMs/annual passenger throughout from what is really a rather small and certainly a very awkwardly laid out site. As Suzeman points out, the business ethos changed away from local pride etc over the years as MAG (a national group of airports) emerged. The small revenues gained from cargo and diversions don't outweigh the logistical challenges such traffic presents, and in the cost-benefit analysis there's a good chance that that revenue can still be captured via another MAG airport better able to accept it. Believe me, the logisitics puzzle of stand allocation at MAN is is a headache. Some very skilled and experienced people still juggle the plan day by day to make it work. It's easy to look out at any time and see vacant stands ("what's the problem?") but those vacant stands are like the spaces on a solitaire board - if one of them becomes occupied a fraction longer than expected then the whole plan falls over and cascades 12 or 24 hours ahead, making multiple stand changes necessary. And that is often the nature of cargo traffic, especially ad hoc - these flights book slots and then don't operate in accordance because the cargo has been delayed on the roads etc. Diversions by their nature don't operate to a schedule, and once they're on the ground they can stay there as crews go out of hours and so forth. Over the past 3 or 4 years it is MAN that has taken the brunt of the UK airline collapses - Monarch, Thomas Cook and FlyBe - plus the TUi 737 MAX grounding. These events have left MAN with all sorts of airframes lying around the apron and taxiways, for months in some cases. On a recent visit I noted 2 x Virgin A332s in long-term storage sitting on prime T2 stands. MAN cannot be a storage airfield and also accept diversions and ad hoc cargo, there's simply not the space. I think the management are doing their best to keep regular customers happy with the real estate they have. Building more is expensive.
Welcome to the discussion Roverman, Suzeman and the artist formerly know as S1E, all sensible thoughts are welcome good or bad.
With respect to Rovermans comments I respectfully disagree we seem to have collective amnesia in respect of the 2 miles of tarmac lying idle which stretches out to Mobberley and towards Jodrell bank, by all mean lets get the excuses in now, but I'll wager if the CEO of Bournemouth was running Manchester they would be utilising every available metre of that runway in some capacity or another.
Quick quiz , how many aircraft did Bournemouth find space for during lockdown, it was a billion pounds worth,
ker ..ching !
And whilst there might be an abscence of civic pride there is surely a prerogative from our current CEO to add to their CV ?
We used to have thee best ops team and thee best cargo management team in the country, their input is sorely missed. Its a shame they don't offer consultancy to the current team who appear somewhat light on their feet.