Originally Posted by
SWBKCB
It's a conundrum how the airport expands (other then replacing small aircraft with bigger ones) without additional stands, and where the space for these stands comes from. Sure there are gaps between waves, but there are reasons why those gaps exist.
Ive wondered about this also. And I also spoke to a good friends dad who used to be ATC at MAN and asked him, here were his thoughts.
The immediate issue at the moment is the A380 which needs stand 12 for the 3 daily flights, yes there are remote A380 stands but that is not sustainable long term to have 3 daily A380’s on remote. So you would assume/hope that the second pier being built will have A380 capable gates (or at least one). If that is the case, EK can move to T2 and that leaves EZY plus a few EI that use pier B consistently. EI it makes sense to move to T2 anyway with EUK. And EZY can park remote, they only use contact at T1 for the first wave. This leaves the opportunity to demolish pier B initially, which immediately frees up apron space for multiple remote stands. With its proximity to T3 many would be ideal for RYR.
However the real big issue as my friends dad said is pier C as it creates a cul de sac. In an ideal world you’d get rid of pier C and create another row/rows of stands coming out of T2, with space for a pier to be built in future if deemed necessary. Let’s look at who uses pier C. Most star carriers (SN aside), EY, GF, FI and some Turkish charter airlines. Most if not all would ideally like contact stands, so how would this impact T2? Well, the new pier would take some of the slack and the far side of pier A could accommodate them but it would mean more remote parking for the likes of BY and LS, which would they be happy with or bothered about? (I don’t know the answer to this question) If so do you want to be hacking off two of your biggest based airlines?
As my friends dad said, the big issue is Pier C both in terms of its location and the airlines that use it. But the quick win to free up space and therefore flexibility is pier B once EK are moved.
it was an interesting take and being former ATC he obviously knows his stuff. His opinion was that a mistake was initially made going for a pier structure at T2 rather than a satellite structure, but that’s another argument in itself.