Cargo at MAN has never truly recovered from the outrageous sacking of Gordon Griffiths (and others) by that clown who parachuted-in his mates from East Midlands in their place. Thank goodness we've got Cornish and O' Toole these days. They give cause for hope.
Sorry Shed - you are way off beam with that comment. No one from EMA was "parachuted in" when Gordon Griffiths went; the cargo side was run by MA staff with some co-operation with EMA on joint marketing at cargo conferences etc but no EMA staff moved to MAN to run cargo or had any influence over it.
GG left in 2001 when flown freight throughput was around 106,000 tonnes; by 2006 when John Spooner left it was around 149,000 tonnes, peaking the next year at 165,000 tonnes. In 2006 there was a major re-organisation and many MAN staff left including some involved in cargo.
Cargo throughput at MAN is way below peak levels achieved in the past with little hope of significant improvement
For flown freight maybe. But what about the the throughput of the freight sheds at the Cargo Centre? Do you know how that is doing? This of course covers a major amount of freight which is coming on on a lorry and being consolidated for a cheaper rate and then taken somewhere else on another lorry. 12 years ago this surface freight was estimated to be about 50% of the flown throughput, so there is a lot of business there that is not reflected in the statistics.
During the period of the recession when the flown freight throughput plummeted I didn't see transit shed operators going bust despite many of the pure freighters stopping.
As the recession bit, many shippers looked at how they could be more efficient and some freight especially from the Far East was transferred to ships when companies realised that with a bit of forward planning their goods could still get to the markets in time - for example Cathay used to have lots of extra flights in November with goods for the Christmas market in UK, but most of this was eventually manufactured earlier and stuck on a ship where costs were less.
And of course more recently the introduction by EK of the A380 has seen some freight being trucked to other UK airports to utilise the B777s capacity
What is important for the region is that the North's shippers have enough options to get their goods to market in a timely and cost effective manner. For some a consolidation at MAN and a lorry transit to other airports will produce a cheaper rate and they are prepared to put up with whatever the time penalty is.
However, it is certainly of concern if the current marketing set up is dissuading airlines who see MAN as a viable option for an all freight service.