Things could indeed be looking up for MAN, although the evidence may be a while in coming yet. After a difficult few years MAN now has what LHR, LGW and to a large extent STN don't have - spare capacity at a time when building new airport infrastructure is out of favour. The runways could handle double the number of daily flights, the terminals have lots of capacity outside of the single morning peak hour, the airspace has slack, the surface transport links are already in place or have improvements in the pipeline (Metrolink / Manchester Rail Hub). No big expenditure required then, and crucially, no expansion of the site outside the existing perimeter. This makes environmental sense by using an already developed site to its full capacity rather than concreting other parts of the country and inviting negative attention to the industry. Further investment is required to improve and upgrade some existing facilities for sure - taxiways and older parts of Terminal 1 in particular, but these are not huge sums spread incrementally over several years. MAN has capacity to offer without handing around the hat to customers - it's already been built and the cost covered by existing charges. MAN has a fantastic customer base - dependent on no single airline or airline group. Loss of some high-profile routes over the years has made bad headlines, but think - the recent BA strikes are having negligible effect on MAN, and no one carrier has more than about 15% of total traffic, making the airport highly resilient to airline failures or strategy changes. It remains consistently profitable and has a prudent level of borrowings.
MAN - Owned by the British public, to serve the British public.
Last edited by roverman; 3rd Jun 2010 at 09:56.
Reason: typos