MANCHESTER 1

[viscount702]

8 required both days unless they have made some changes of which I am not aware. Details below

Friday
0630 1135 GDN 4094/5
0620 1145 BTS 34/35
0625 1200 BCN 7542/3
0620 1230 PMI 3441/2
0630 1235 CIA 3204/5
0700 1250 MAD 3187/6
0630 1305 ALC 4007/6
0640 1555 ACE 2131/2

Saturday

0625 1200 BCN 7542/3
0640 1205 BLQ 2242/3
0630 1235 CIA 3204/5
0700 1250 MAD 3187/6
0630 1305 ALC 4007/6
0650 1310 PMI 3441/2
1005 1615 IBZ 2626/7
0655 1615 CHQ 2821/2

[MANFOD]

8 required both days unless they have made some changes of which I am not aware.

Ah, thanks. Looks like I missed GDN from Friday, and it never occurred to me that a 10.05 to IBZ on Saturday would be a first departure with a based a/c.

[Jamie2k9]

Ah, thanks. Looks like I missed GDN from Friday, and it never occurred to me that a 10.05 to IBZ on Saturday would be a first departure with a based a/c.

It would of been (06.55) MAN-SNN-MAN before IBZ but appears to of been pulled, would expect it will get out before 10.05 once schedules are finalized in the coming weeks.

[AldiAl]

Following on from the new route discussion some posts back, yesterday saw
international sanctions lifted on Iran.

The BBC also announced a 114 strong order for Airbuses for the Iranians and so it would be no surprise to see either the tail of the national carrier or Mahan Air gracing our tarmac over the next couple of years.

There are plenty of used Airbuses knocking around as an interim source before new deliveries could commence and a pretty good potential market in the northwest for travellers to and from Iran.

One to watch.

[rutankrd]

The Iranian carriers were not blocked from operating to Manchester or Birmingham by UN sanctions but rather UK specifically imposed safety concerns.

Maharan are ready to return to the UK very quickly however both regional airports have added competition from Gatwick now !

[Ametyst1]

This morning's Finnair flight from Helsinki, AY933 has diverted to Liverpool.

[750XL]

TOM Dreamliner also went to EMA due to surface damage on rwy #1

[MANFOD]

And a TOM went to EMA.

Are they landing 23L now? Is there an issue with 23R?
As I write there are some 7 a/c waiting to land.

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

ICE440 (B752) also diverted to LPL - it only held for a relatively short time before making the decision. Work is underway to repair a large pothole on 05L/23R. In the meantime, traffic is using 23L but this necessitates 15-mile gaps for inbounds so there is a backlog. The Ops team did really well to get 23L snow-cleared and open at around one hour's notice on a morning when it would not normally be called upon.

FIN933 (E190) is now on the way back from LPL.

EDIT: 23R re-opened for normal ops approx 11:56.

[rkenyon]

Probably a lot of Finnish football fans quite pleased with that diversion

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

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.

[Ringwayman]

Are we sure that the original 09.30 estimate was for 23R/05L to reopen or for the airport to reopen? Given the actual time that 23L/05R was open for business i tend to think that estimate was for the airport.

[chaps1954]

Yes I think you are right on that, the snow guys were out very quickly

Ian

[Johnny F@rt Pants]

I'm certain it was for the runway to re-open. They were out clearing runway 2 but the original plan was for 05L ops to resume at 09;30, then 09:45, it was only at about 09:40, when the next delay to re-opening 05L was made to 10:00 that ATC knew that runway 2 would be cleared and ready before runway 1 was repaired that new clearances were given and movements then commenced a few minutes thereafter.

[duthcourage]

3rd runway?

hello

i don't post much on this forum but follow it regularly as i do with another forum 'skyscrapercity.com'. In the Manchester section there's a chat about Manchester's Economy and one of the posters submitted this yesterday; see esp. point 4. Is this/can this be true? Does anyone know more about this (tower configuration and/or any planning for a potential 3rd runway), it's the first time I've heard about it:

START:
I've been given some interesting info about Airport City.

Apparently:

1) EBay are joining Amazon in opening up a big distribution hub.
2) A US investment bank is opening up a UK head office at the development rather than in London.
3) The Chinese National Investment Bank are also opening a head office on the site.
4) The new control tower has been configured to allow the development of a third runway which will be situated at the Knutsford end of the site.

ENDS

[GavinC]

Year End Provisional

provisional data is out for the calendar year from CAA.


http://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analys...-data-2015-12/


MAN up 5.3% in month taking the total for the year to 23,096,829 which is an increase of 5.2% year on year.
LGW have broken the 40 million barrier with just one runway showing us what can be done! Stansted data is still missing.

MEB3 (and Turkish / Cathey) from MAN in Month:
EK - 79,859 - up 13%
EY - 38,428 - up 16%
QR - 30,365 - up 48%
TR - 21,458 - up 21%
CX - 10,659 - up 41%

[MANFOD]

CAA provisional stats December

In the monthly percentage figures Gavin posted, as you can see, EK only just fell short of 80,000 pax in December, and even if all the EK21/22 flights were 2 class B777s, the LF would be at least 88% I reckon.

Based on each month's provisional figures, the total for CX for the 12 months Jan-Dec I calculate to be 124,172. The final figures may vary but hopefully only slightly. With 418 flight sectors, that is an overall LF of 87.4%. December's was 87.1%

The lowest was May at 80.4% and the highest July with 96.2%.

[Ringwayman]

If MAN were to decide to price out the sub 100 seaters in the LGW manner then the passenger numbers would be considerably smaller.

[Curious Pax]

Not quite sure how that's relevant. If Gatwick had 2 runways they probably wouldn't need to price out sub 100 seaters!

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

If MAN were to decide to price out the sub 100 seaters in the LGW manner then the passenger numbers would be considerably smaller.

Well no, the trick is to price out smaller operators and replace the same slots with bigger aircraft and so maximising throughput. There's no reason to drive out smaller oeprators if you can't replace the volumes. Gatwick has not blinked at the loss of Air Southwest or FlyBe as Norwegian and easyJet more than stepped up capacity to fill the gap, what was lost was certain, mainly domestic routes.