Manchester-2

[CabinCrewe]

is there still financial issues hanging over Hainan and are they serious eg likely to ultimately impact on UK ops. Seems issues around funding of some previously ordered aircraft.

[LAX_LHR]

6 new Easyjet routes this winter.

Lisbon (already announced)
Bordeaux (long overdue, been unserved for a very long time ex-MAN)
Barcelona and Faro (been obvious omissions from the MAN Easyjet network for a long time)
Innsbruck and Lanzarote (2 more good choices).

[easyflyer83]

Equates to an additional 5 based aircraft over the next 12 months.

[LAX_LHR]

Easyjet have confirmed MAN will see 5 more based aircraft, making it the largest operation in the U.K. outside of London.

2 more aircraft based this winter, 3 next summer making 17 based in total. Ali Gayward has also said this will be the largest single base increase on the network for 2019.

[AndrewH52]

Originally Posted by easyflyer83

Equates to an additional 5 based aircraft over the next 12 months.

Not quite sure how you get to that number? 14 flights a week is barely enough to keep one aircraft occupied. Surely this is just making the most of capacity added this summer?

[MKY661]

Great news about the Expansion, hopefully we'll see an increase in GIB flights too.

Hopefully Jet2 will have moved more flights over to T2 though, otherwise T1 is gonna be manic!

[easyflyer83]

Originally Posted by AndrewH52

Not quite sure how you get to that number? 14 flights a week is barely enough to keep one aircraft occupied. Surely this is just making the most of capacity added this summer?

sorry, I was referring to the overall base expansion. Worded incorrectly.

[AndrewH52]

Originally Posted by easyflyer83

sorry, I was referring to the overall base expansion. Worded incorrectly.

No worries. I’ve seen the press release now. Surely something had to give somewhere - T1 is bursting at the seams as it is and trying to add 1.5m pax in one hit sounds like a recipe for chaos. It’s making the terminal expansion even less fit for purpose than it already is.

[Ringwayman]

5 or 6 Jet2 aircraft to go fron T1 to T2 will help matters

[The96er]

Aren't TCX penciled in for a move to T2 when the new extension opens ? - even with TCX/Jet2 moving Ops to T2, parking space will very limited across the airport for next summer. No doubt there will be further increases from RYR/Jet2/CFE/TCX etc.. in due course too.

[Northsky]

As a consumer in the north-west, I don't feel today's announcement is as good as what everyone is making out. None of these are routes that Easyjet haven't served from the north-west before, or currently do.

Take for example Lisbon. That route actually has Easyjets highest load factor out of Liverpool (I know its not the be all and end all but a good sign of its success). They now appear to be discontinuing it from there and moving it to Manchester, where they will take on TAP and Ryanair. Not only do I have one less airport to choose from when flying to Lisbon but there's a risk TAP could reduce its frequency/withdraw.

This is nothing new, and a similar pattern with Bordeaux, Innsbruck etc. As a fare paying passenger I just feel competition and choice are being whittled down from this region a little bit each year (even with Blackpool closing a few years ago, not Easyjets fault!).

I know why they do it, get more of a monopoly on something you can charge more per seat!

On the other hand, as for Barcelona, Faro and Lanzarote, I think it might just make prices more competitive between Jet2 and Ryanair. Not likely to affect any legacy or smaller carriers. In that sense I suppose that type of competition will benefit the local consumer.

[AndrewH52]

Originally Posted by Ringwayman

5 or 6 Jet2 aircraft to go fron T1 to T2 will help matters

Will it? T2 at capacity at peak times too and the next phase of construction is likely to be much more disruptive.

[Mr A Tis]

30 UK airports rated for service to passengers with a disability: 16 very good, 10 good, 3 need improvements and 1 poor ow.ly/rDYN50hXScL #AccessToAir

New report from the CAA on disability- Guess which airport was rated poor (2nd year running)

i don,t know how the airport will cope with further new routes as it really is struggling to handle the traffic it already has.
Having made record profits there really is no excuse on providing a better passenger experience, disabled or otherwise.

come on Manchester, this is getting embarrassing being bottom of almost every survey going.
you are destroying the reputation of what was a great airport.

[Mister Geezer]

In fact the CAA ranked MAN at the bottom. The article below is an interesting read for those interested.

Four airports found to be failing disabled passengers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44807283

[RAS_2001]

TUI have announced that they are starting direct flights from Manchester to Aqaba, Muscat, and Langkawi in Malaysia, I would imagine that LGK would even a seasonal destination, unsure about the other 2.

[pholling]

Originally Posted by Mr A Tis

30 UK airports rated for service to passengers with a disability: 16 very good, 10 good, 3 need improvements and 1 poor ow.ly/rDYN50hXScL #AccessToAir

New report from the CAA on disability- Guess which airport was rated poor (2nd year running)

i don,t know how the airport will cope with further new routes as it really is struggling to handle the traffic it already has.
Having made record profits there really is no excuse on providing a better passenger experience, disabled or otherwise.

come on Manchester, this is getting embarrassing being bottom of almost every survey going.
you are destroying the reputation of what was a great airport.

The CAA report is crap, i.e. so poorly written that it boarders on arbitrary. However, it seems MAN clearly has or has had issues with the handling of disabled passengers. It is also pretty clear that the airlines are probably even worse. I would guess that there are some airlines that are much worse than others and are also much less likely to be willing to pay for quality service at an airport. Smaller airports tend to do better, and this may be because they are 'minimum gauge' on the service, where as the larger airports are much more dependent on specific staffing levels. Incidentally, this isn't a survey and the CAA doesn't make directly, accessible reference to the passenger satisfaction survey results for individual airports, just the industry as a whole.

[chaps1954]

Northsky I think you will find that most of those routes were ex Monarch ones and have been crying out for someone to step in and take them on,
Easyjet were trying to get them up and going this year but it proved just too difficult so this should put us back where we were before the demise of Monarch
I am suprised they are moving the Lisbon from Liverpool but maybe they think they can make more money or they had a gap to fill

Ian

[LAX_LHR]

One of the issues is that OCS has a monopoly on PRM assistance, thus, the desire to provide a decent service dwindles. Prime example being one particular night when a Lourdes flight was operating (pretty much full PRM flight) and OCS thought it was appropriate to have just 4 members of staff present on the whole Airport site. This is why service suffers. I’m not making excuses as it needs to be sorted, but, it just gives a snapshot as to what the issue is.

Its not the fault of the airlines, as on my travels I haven’t personally seen an airline that handles the full PRM experience in house, so, unfair to say they are worse. They can only work with the tools being provided, and in many cases, they are inadequate for the job.

[pholling]

Originally Posted by AndrewH52

Will it? T2 at capacity at peak times too and the next phase of construction is likely to be much more disruptive.

All depends on what MAN does with their capacity declarations. If the terminal is oversubscribed at specific times then some flights will have to move to other times. Incidentally, T2, according to the ACL S18 start report, is nowhere near it's declared passenger capacity for any point in the day, both arrivals and departures and 60 and 120 min capacities. T1 and T3 have times when they are either are or, very briefly, just over their capacities. Of course the MAN may be declaring way too much capacity, especially if the next phase is more disruptive.

[Flightrider]

One of the issues is that OCS has a monopoly on PRM assistance

EU1107/2006 removed the responsibility of PRM provision from airlines individually - who used to be able to contract with any of a range of competing suppliers - and handed that responsibility to airports, who by and large have contracted with a single supplier for their entire PRM requirements, the costs of which are then met by a PRM levy on every passenger's ticket. All of the airports assessed in this year's CAA report have a monopoly provider for PRM assistance so it's a level playing field - and one backed by EU regs - in that respect. I think there are a couple of airports where the operator provides the service with its own staff, but for the mostpart, it is contracted out to third parties who are then managed (or not) by the airport operator.

Having flown through MAN T3, EMA and STN all in the last month, there is a common theme through all three of a total lack of customer service. For balance, I've also flown through GLA, EDI, LHR, LGW too, all of which have been far better. I find the MAG airports to be poor in comparison. Security queues at all three are routinely longer than anywhere else; they are still paying people to shout at you for daring to look at your mobile phone when in the lengthy queue; there is a lack of airside seating particularly in MAN T3 and even basics like cleaning and toilet checks are poor - EMA this week was a disgrace. I don't know if they have someone in MAG responsible group-wide for security and customer services, but if they have, the individual needs to be replaced by someone competent. Other airports are managing infrastructure and big construction projects well, alongside delivering a customer experience on a day-to-day basis. Grand though MAG's future plans are - and I'm sure they will improve things - there are still several million passengers going through their airports in the meantime for whom the experiences are pretty grim. I'm not surprised they're bottom of every league table going - it reflects the customer reality of all three airports today.