MANCHESTER - 9

[Bagso]

MANFOD

I will try and find the actual quotes, it wasn't in the final report I don't think but certainly mentioned by either Hansard Or in some of the other briefings.

Mr Brush is exactly correct although Davies in my view made some comments which were much more robust to the point of being highly disparaging, it is THAT which should have been challenged !

I sometimes think he was heavily influenced by BA and VS and simply regurgitated their comments.

They have no interest in business routes Ex MAN so naturally are not exactly going to wave the flag for any destinations outside London.

I did see one media launch which I think was for The London Chamber of Commerce a highly receptive audience of course, here he stressed the need for more runways given the 98% load factors being achieved !

This is what is highly worrying because it is of course complete drivel, he seems to have been advised that because slots are at 98% that translates to loads of a similar figure.

It is a strand of the review which I find perplexing. Infact every single time there is an incident or reference to a Heathrow flight the load factor appears appalling.

I know Skippy will quote CAA figs and correct me here but is galling when you hear details of such paltry loads I assumed that THIS is what Davies was going to try and FIX in order to make best use of available capacity.

The 777 that crashed short 152 pax
The A319 that made an emergency landing 75 pax on board
Last week we had an incident with a PIA 777, that had less than 60 passengers on it !

When "Airport Live" was on last year some of the boarding figures were appalling, Kate Humble enthused on one occasion about the passengers who would be jetting off in style to Jo Burg on an A340.... how many was it now 90 ?

Clearly this is not the full picture and I concede I am being highly selective BUT is that not the type of area that Davies should have looked at in detail ?

Is it not equally damaging to the environment to have half empty planes operating IN/OUT of LHR OR have we created a completely false situation where slots are operated simply because they appear on the balance as a tangible and highly prised asset. In effect it doesn't mean a fig what the load factor is as these are disguised by the intrinsic VALUE of the slot on the balance sheet AND do we need to build another RW simply to equalise that value ! Again where is the scrutiny ?

Back to Davies, he basically he stated that "flights from regional airports were highly detrimental to the environment and basically should be discouraged". That is not Mancunian spin btw !

It is somewhat at odds with his remit of "exploring ALL avenues in terms of providing UK airport capacity to meet demand, including best use of regional airports".

It would be interesting to see what the MAG spokesperson does actually say in respect of response to Davies because most of the arguments they put forward were in support of their stance on Stansted NOT Manchester.

Would highlighting inadequacies of the MAN strategy get us anywhere at a meeting of "local spotters" anyway, well probably not !

AND what is he actually going to say, ironically it is 12 months to the day since the STN deal went through....... precisely the moment when submissions by MAG relating to MAN fell off a cliff, disappearing almost without trace.