Glad to see the armchair experts are out in force
How many of you have operational experience at an airport? (this doesn't apply to those of you in the pointy end who can't understand why there isn't a tug available to sit under the aircraft for a 3 hour slot delay
)
MAN accepted a number of diverts last night, and the ones turned away were for legitimate reasons.
Lack of stand space: Stand space is always at a premium for wide bodied aircraft at MAN, regardless of the season or time of day! Off the top of my head, the only stands available for a 77W for example are 12, 31, 204, 206, 80 (taxiway papa) and 85 (ish).
12 - Usually two Easyjets night stopping here
31 - Lufty or TCX nightstopper
204 - MON/TOM nightstopper
206 - MON/TOM nightstopper
80 - Usually available, but not ideal to put an aircraft on for obvious reasons
85 - Possibly available, but this morning I noticed a few BA A319 diverts on there
So, where exactly do you dump the 77W that appears when you physically have no space for it? Dump it on runway two? Excellent idea, until you think of the logistics involved getting pax, bags, crew, catering, cleaning etc over to runway two and back (and you can't fuel over there). Not to mention the fact there's no flood lighting available, it's hard to manoeuvre expensive equipment around a big metal shiny thing in the pitch black.
Staff: The airport is run on skeleton staff at the best of time, and this covers most departments. At 2200 on a Friday night, where do you suddenly find the required staff for such an influx of flights? Again, it's a logistical nightmare when you get a divert and a lot of communication is needed. How is one person in a handling agents ops department supposed to co-ordinate that when they've got no staff themselves?
'Get more staff,' you scream. Great idea
Until the cost of them extra staff get bunged onto your ticket and you won't fly any more because it's too expensive
Fuel: I stand to be corrected, but I wasn't aware of any fuel restrictions at MAN last night? The airport is supplied direct from the refinery as far as I know, so not sure how MAN can become short on fuel unless the pipe line is off? I think it's more plausible that there were no fuelling staff available for 'splash n dash' diverts (there's no night fuellers at MAN).
HOTAC: Where do you place all these diverted pax? Hotels were full in Manchester last night after the last divert appeared, which subsequently means you've got an aircraft stuck in an airport it shouldn't be at for a longer period of time because you're messing around ferry pax to/from the airport to hotels further afield.
And as for those of you who think the airport turning away a divert will affect the possibility of them starting up scheduled routes
MAN isn't perfect, far from it, but it isn't the worst out there, not even close. A number of other airports turned away diverts last night, they just don't get reported as other airports don't have the spotter base that MAN does.