EY015, 8th October
I flew in on the Etihad on 8th October - a long journey from Sydney, and an excellent flight and service from Etihad, as always. However, upon arrival at MAN we had to wait 49 minutes to get to our stand. After spending 29 hours on my journey, it was not a welcome development.
The Etihad flight had a large number of Australians on board who were visiting the UK and had decided to avoid LHR. This is fantastic news; however, there was great anger at the long wait for a stand and there was a lot of talk about never flying into Manchester again. This is a very great shame.
I have flown well in excess of 1 million miles in the last few years, to destinations all around the globe. I have only ever had to wait a long period for a stand at Manchester - and not just on this occasion. It reflects very poorly on the airport. If other airports can accomodate traffic upon arrival, why can't MAN?
Then, of course, the travellators in Pier C were not working.
I am proud to come from the North West of England, and I used to be proud of my local airport. But now, it hurts me to say, that pride has turned to embarrassment.
I will write a letter to MAPLC to give my feedback. But it seems such a shame that the airport works so hard to encourage passengers to fly into MAN when visiting the UK, then undoes all the hard work by providing a poor passenger experience.
I know this topic has been raised multiple times on PPRUNE, and I'm not looking to be controversial or cause offence. It just hurts me to see my local airport offer such a low standard of service when compared to other global destinations.