Yes, MAN airport seem to allow any amount of Ground Handling Agents (GHA)'s at MAN.
And this is why
The CAA has powers under the Airports (Groundhandling) Regulations 1997 which implemented the European directive on access to the ground handling market at Community airports. The directive is intended to liberalise handling at EU airports.
Airports with over 2 million passengers a year cannot limit the number of self handlers or third party suppliers of ground handling services without permission from the CAA.
Limitations can only be granted on the grounds of specific safety, security, capacity or available space constraints.
Airports can apply to the CAA for the number of suppliers or self-handlers to be limited.
Airports (Groundhandling) Regulations 1997 | Regulatory Policy | About the CAA
Lots of bumf there
Some particularly interesting stuff in here although it's from 2007
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...s/gh1_2007.pdf
Suzeman, I don't have a clue what hoops they have to jump through to get security cleared. A lot of red tape can be cut through by giving them an airport ops vehicle as an escort like they do for construction equipment when resurfacing works etc are ongoing. The folks driving the dump trucks are just normal construction workers with a police vetting done to get them an airside pass
Thank you for that. But I wonder if ops vehicles and trained drivers could be stretched in a snow clearing operation anyway and the need to provide escorts may not be the best use of resources, even when they would ostensibly be bringing more equipment to the party. Escorting construction vehicles can be programmed in well in advance - snow clearance is a tad more difficult to predict!