One Sixty until 4:
Norwegian website shows a resumption of their service to MAN from 31.10.11. arriving from Oslo.
DY1348 A 09.50 and returns as DY1349 D 10.20.
Good news and hopefully loads will be sustainable this time.
First green shoots of a recovery? And a vote of confidence in MAN.
A resumption it is not. The previous time Norwegian flew to MAN from Bergen (BGO), not from Oslo (OSL) and the BGO flight had miserable loads. MAN is listed on the 4th place of destinations underserved from OSL, and I presume that's the reason for Norwegian will start to fly to MAN again. It is definitely not a vote of confidence for a recovery at MAN, but instead more question of differences in currency values - the pound (GBP) has lost over one quarter of its value compared with the Norwegian Kroner (NOK) the last years. In other words you will see more Norwegians traveling to the Northwest England, and I suspect a large share will be football fans. A small correction to the times
One Sixty until 4 did show above:
Mondays/Wednesdays: arr. 09:50 dep. 10:20
Fridays: arr. 13:10 dep. 13:40
Some of you may want to see the difference in recovery/growth between MAN and OSL. The graph below shows the changes in 12 month rolling passenger numbers at both airports since the end of 2004. The year-on-year growth at MAN is now (at the end of May) +2.8% compared with +11.4% at OSL. In March 2010 both airports had 18.3 million passenger the previous 12 months and at the end of May this year the difference had grown to 2 million passenger per year (18.2 million vs 20.2 million). More and less the sole reason for the "recovery" at MAN is only the cancelling out of the Icelandic ash effect - the airport still hasn't reached the level they had for their 12 month rolling numbers in March 2010 (24,000 passengers are missing for that).
