freddyfokker
All I can say is that if you've never held in 6 years at MAN, then you've been lucky!
As my colleague has already said there is more traffic, not a huge amount, but more nonetheless. Air holding on a normal day is reduced to almost nil instead of the 10-20 minutes which was commonplace before. Like I said, you've been lucky.
Departure queues are still there caused by the introduction of the HON routing, but we're working on improving that. Departure queues on easterly dual ops are almost non-existant.
Single runway movement rates reached 50+/hr regularly and peaked at 60 last September. This year there have been peak arrival rates of 36/hr and similar departure rates, although not simultaneously. Ground congestion is becoming a problem and will hold back the growth in runway movements.
When approaching from the east as you will do mostly, we do try to give a "straight-in" whenever possible as it gets you away from the POL region where at times there can be an awful lot going on. On easterlies we can accept you on a downwind heading but if there is a lot of traffic ahead of you then it won't happen. You will end up either on the STAR or direct BURNI. 90% of the time you won't reach BURNI and you'll be doing 250kts+, so what's the gripe? Nobody else does as well as you getting 300kt straight-ins 50% of the time on westerlies.
Taxyways:
We (ATC) didn't design them;
We can't straighten them;
We have asked for painted taxyway letters and arrows at some intersections;
We have asked for more holding points to avoid " hold beam..." clearances;
We have produced a modified, less confusing layout which still conforms to ICAO requirements (3 years ago!).
"Right left right left stand 7" sound familiar?
This has moved off the original topic of the thread, but its not all bad at MAN, as some would have you believe!