give a reasonable estimate rather than stringing people along.
In an ideal world an accurate reopening time would be promulgated straight away. But this presumes that the duration required for the repair is immediately obvious. Nobody sets out to mislead or string people along in situations such as this. However, reopening guidance can only be issued on a best endeavour basis. An emergency runway surface repair of this sort may be required just once or twice a year at MAN. And the staff involved work shifts. Some of the personnel on duty may have no previous experience of doing a repair like this against the clock so their estimates will by definition be well-intentioned guesswork.
No doubt you are familiar with this type of dilemma yourself, Johnny (your postings indicate that you are a Jet2 captain). When your aircraft goes tech you presumably have no desire to mislead your passengers. But the time required for the repair will ultimately be a guess, yet your punters shout and bang their fists demanding an accurate departure time. Sometimes 'next information at ...' is the best way to go, but airline captains themselves don't tend to appreciate that approach from an airport operator. So an estimate is issued in good faith. But it is still an
estimate. Unique one-off repairs take as long as they take.
This morning was frustrating for all involved. But despite having staffing levels befitting a Winter Sunday morning, airport ops had 23L up-and-running from closed, snow-covered and icy to clear and fully serviceable in little over an hour. They had no prior indication that this runway would be required, so really they did darned well. Let's just give a little credit where it is due. Ultimately, just three flights were required to divert away and two of those returned later after a 'splash-and-dash' at LPL.