Manchester-2

[Navpi]

It weakens the case for LHR R3, which is founded on the 'there's only one hub for the UK' argument. Airports like MAN, with a vast range of destinations and airlines but no major hub operator, are well-placed to benefit from this emerging trend. He says, as 105 passengers join Thomas Cook's MAN-Seattle flight yesterday from a range of UK and EU connections.


I think im correct in saying Manchester serves more destinations than any other airport in the uk circa 220 (?), obvilusy a % are seasonal and adhoc, but never let spin get in the way of fcats.

( I'm sure I read that its in the top 12 in the World).

I would have though MAG would have made more of this "if they want the business" , as Bilko says, is Manchester fleet of foot to react ?

[Habana2118]

What’s this with the MAG branded aircraft steps in the pic with the TUI aircraft, has Manchester airport started its own ramp handling again?

[roverman]

Originally Posted by Habana2118

What’s this with the MAG branded aircraft steps in the pic with the TUI aircraft, has Manchester airport started its own ramp handling again?

MAG provided 3 step units in 2017 when T2 West Pier was demolished and therefore 4 air bridge gates lost. They are used by ground handlers at those stands (213-215), mainly Swissport. Gate 212 became a lounge to serve the remaining stands.

[Habana2118]

Ah ok that makes sense now ..

[ian_h1]

Cobalt to Larnaca going Summer Seasonal only from 2019

[LAX_LHR]

TUI add 1 weekly Rijeka, Croatia on Thursdays from May 2019. That’s 5 Croatian airports covered from MAN now.

[Ex Cargo Clown]

Originally Posted by LAX_LHR

TUI add 1 weekly Rijeka, Croatia on Thursdays from May 2019. That’s 5 Croatian airports covered from MAN now.

I've now worked out who you are on Twitter, due to this tweet, "to introduce a new route from @manairport to Rijeka in Croatia from May 2019. One weekly on Thursdays. That’s 5 Croatian airports covered"

Coincidence?

[Curious Pax]

I’m normally keen to defend MAN, but having had a 40 queue through security this morning wasn’t impressed to read this: MAN T3 Security chaos

I joined the queue just before 6, so no idea where the 2 hour wait that was quoted came from- as far as I could see it wasn’t getting much longer as I got to the front. However what annoys me is the airport spokesman claiming all lanes were open. There are 11 security machines in T3 - only 6 were in use.

On the plus side the staff were courteous- shouting instructions to the queue as you would expect, but not in a rude or unreasonable way.

[ifu05596]

Originally Posted by Curious Pax

I’m normally keen to defend MAN, but having had a 40 queue through security this morning wasn’t impressed to read this: MAN T3 Security chaos

I joined the queue just before 6, so no idea where the 2 hour wait that was quoted came from- as far as I could see it wasn’t getting much longer as I got to the front. However what annoys me is the airport spokesman claiming all lanes were open. There are 11 security machines in T3 - only 6 were in use.

On the plus side the staff were courteous- shouting instructions to the queue as you would expect, but not in a rude or unreasonable way.

How far in advance do I need to arrive for my flight at 16.50 tomorrow... these stories are scary! I am HBO so was hoping to walk through like at Glasgow/Edinburgh! Annoying that Flybe aren't doing the mobile boarding passes either...

[SQ380]

Hi Curious Pax

Went through T3 myself this morning just before you at 0530hrs for the 0630 Ryanair Madrid flight, only 4 out of the 11 security machine were in use two of which were for fast track the queue was back to the boarding pass machines, luckily for me as I joined the end of the queue there was announcement for flight regarding any cabin luggage to be put into the hold with this approached the friendly girl on fast track and she let me use the fast track however this was not fast as they were filtering in the normal queue into one of the fast track, then the guy with the trays was taking items out of your tray and spreading across two trays his excuse is that it stops you getting tray searched at the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even after putting the trays on at fast track they only had one security screen working instead of two so basically slowing down again. so for out of 11 lanes open 3 out of 11 screening open, no wonder people complain,
Then the return landed on IB at 1710hrs got to passport control well walked passed it and joined the queue at gate 54 only 3 border force guards manning the posts out of 10 booths 30 minutes to clear and I could here people slating Manchester off in the queue, but if you were foreign and outside the EU you got to join a queue with no more than 3 or 4 in, us poor brits trying to get through these e gates that are suppose to be making it a lot quicker (caugh) only plus side was that once 2/3 the way down the queue they were pulling some out of the queue to go through the boarder guards, actually feel sorry for the staff on duty its clear they are under staffed and all were friendly except the guy with the trays, but shows time and time again the place is well and truly understaffed

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

It weakens the case for LHR R3, which is founded on the 'there's only one hub for the UK' argument. Airports like MAN, with a vast range of destinations and airlines but no major hub operator, are well-placed to benefit from this emerging trend. He says, as 105 passengers join Thomas Cook's MAN-Seattle flight yesterday from a range of UK and EU connection

Not sure about this Bagso.....er Navpi from East Anglia (!)
Not a single carrier or Alliance pushes a major focus on connections through MAN although of course some are offered. Comparisons with Dublin need to be taken with the realisation DUB has a based flag carrier and a feeder fleet of both mainline and franshise partners as well as Ryanair to EI unprotected connections being not uncommon. MAN has no such anchor tennant, indeed Thomas Cook have done remarkably well in having so many people connecting on long haul holiday flights (be interesting to see from which airline that 105 connected from), but comparisons with Heathrow are even less valid. STAR ALLIANCE even have their own branded terminal at T2 connecting AC, UA, TG, AI, BR etc to Europe with an existing critical mass. MAN should and could do better on connecting flights but without a based carrier, it won’t amount to anything that resembles a real hub, anymore than Gatters will, and that’s not a criticism as I am huge fan of both airports. (OK not MAN T3 as it just stresses me out enormously....)

[MANFOD]

Originally Posted by Curious Pax

I’m normally keen to defend MAN, but having had a 40 queue through security this morning wasn’t impressed to read this: MAN T3 Security chaos

I joined the queue just before 6, so no idea where the 2 hour wait that was quoted came from- as far as I could see it wasn’t getting much longer as I got to the front. However what annoys me is the airport spokesman claiming all lanes were open. There are 11 security machines in T3 - only 6 were in use.

On the plus side the staff were courteous- shouting instructions to the queue as you would expect, but not in a rude or unreasonable way.

MAN really needs to up its game, not just in dealing with the issue of long queues but in the PR statements it puts out when problems occur. Apologies for 'any' inconvenience caused, as happened a couple of weeks ago when some arriving passengers were waiting hours to collect their bags, are hardly satisfactory when it's blatantly obvious there was a good deal of inconvenience.

In the instance yesterday of security queues in T3, I'm not sure whether the spokesperson was being economical with the facts when stating all 'machines' were working, or whether it was clever / devious wording if all machines were working but only for the security lanes that were open.

[MANFOD]

In the previous post mentioning the long delays with baggage collection on that recent Friday night, reminded me that we were promised a full investigation by MAN with the handling agent as to what went wrong. Were the conclusions from that investigation ever announced or was it for internal consumption and action only?

[BHX5DME]

August Traffic

MAN down 0.6% - 3,146,198 rolling year 27,909,953
STN up 8.5% - 2,975,568 rolling year 27,223,584
EMA down 1.2% - 604,682 rolling year 4,847,256

MAN cargo down 12.7%, STN & EMA up

[ifu05596]

Originally Posted by SQ380

Hi Curious Pax

Went through T3 myself this morning just before you at 0530hrs for the 0630 Ryanair Madrid flight, only 4 out of the 11 security machine were in use two of which were for fast track the queue was back to the boarding pass machines, luckily for me as I joined the end of the queue there was announcement for flight regarding any cabin luggage to be put into the hold with this approached the friendly girl on fast track and she let me use the fast track however this was not fast as they were filtering in the normal queue into one of the fast track, then the guy with the trays was taking items out of your tray and spreading across two trays his excuse is that it stops you getting tray searched at the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even after putting the trays on at fast track they only had one security screen working instead of two so basically slowing down again. so for out of 11 lanes open 3 out of 11 screening open, no wonder people complain,
Then the return landed on IB at 1710hrs got to passport control well walked passed it and joined the queue at gate 54 only 3 border force guards manning the posts out of 10 booths 30 minutes to clear and I could here people slating Manchester off in the queue, but if you were foreign and outside the EU you got to join a queue with no more than 3 or 4 in, us poor brits trying to get through these e gates that are suppose to be making it a lot quicker (caugh) only plus side was that once 2/3 the way down the queue they were pulling some out of the queue to go through the boarder guards, actually feel sorry for the staff on duty its clear they are under staffed and all were friendly except the guy with the trays, but shows time and time again the place is well and truly understaffed

Also had my belongings spread across loads of trays - never had that before to that extent! Been arriving into Man the last few weeks and it’s a bit grim but departures was just as bad!

[pholling]

Originally Posted by ifu05596

Also had my belongings spread across loads of trays - never had that before to that extent! Been arriving into Man the last few weeks and it’s a bit grim but departures was just as bad!

The loads of trays is probably in response to having a lot of bags sidelined for secondary screening. I saw a sign in BFS, coming back to MAN, about not packing your hand luggage densely to speed up the security process. The more things you have in a tray, especially in the 3rd dimension, the more likely one item will occlude the other. In which case you will probably see it bounced for a secondary inspection. If the secondary queue fills up it stops the whole screening process as bags cannot clear the x-ray machine until the queue is reduced. I flew out of MAN T3 last Friday and saw exactly this occur. The downside of having things spread over lots of trays is the pick-up queue quickly fills up. If this is coupled with a slow-down on the magnetometer/millimetre wave processing, this also backs-up everything. Of course traveller error can add a lot to it. There was a family in front of us that took ~10 mins to get their bags ready, blocking the whole queue as some were already on the main belt. The agent asked, quite patiently, if they had any liquids or electronics. They said no, they proceeded to discuss what they might have, with each other, for a few minutes. Then opened their bags, proceeded to root through them and pull out lots of liquids, none of which were in the little baggies. Then the security agent asked if they had any larger electrical items, and specifically mentioned hair dryers, straighteners, kettles, etc. They said no. She then asked specifically about hair dryers, and made the motion of using one. After about a minute of discussion amongst themselves out came 2 hair dryers. This then repeated for hair straighteners, same process, and out they came. It was so bad, that the security agent actually thanked my wife for being so organised, especially with a 2-year old. Little did she realise that I had the majority of our hand luggage for that very reason, and we have become separated when the biometrics computer had crashed in the assistance lane and they proceeded to add a bunch of regular passengers to the queue in between us.

I think some of the issues we have are a result of the ever increasing charges for hold luggage. This coupled with the general inability of ground handlers to process bags in a reasonable amount of time, it typically takes about 30mins for some companies to get the first bag out, dissuades people from checking items. This significantly increases the amount of items that have to be screened, increases the likelihood that any tray will require secondary screening, and also the amount of general faffing about at both the front end back end of the screening process. This may be part of the reason why T3 and T1 tend to present worse experiences than T2 when I travel. More of the T2 passengers are either on international flights that include hold luggage or package holidays that do too. As compared to the masses of Ryanair, Easyjet and local European flights that do not. Incidentally, the new Ryanair hand luggage policy from Nov 1 may lead to some improvement at security, as there will be fewer bags going through the screening process. However, Ryanair, Swissport, and MAG do not appear ready for all the new checked bags it will generate.

[Nomoresteerage]

Originally Posted by pholling

The loads of trays is probably in response to having a lot of bags sidelined for secondary screening. I saw a sign in BFS, coming back to MAN, about not packing your hand luggage densely to speed up the security process. The more things you have in a tray, especially in the 3rd dimension, the more likely one item will occlude the other. In which case you will probably see it bounced for a secondary inspection.

It still amazes me that will all the advancements in technology over the last 35 years (my first flight) that screening selection is still reliant on a person to decide if something is suspect or not. Surely technology would be quicker and also able to asses in 3D as it is a binary decision whether to pull a bag or not - even if it flagged up more bags for secondary screening.

[Trav a la]

Originally Posted by Nomoresteerage

It still amazes me that will all the advancements in technology over the last 35 years (my first flight) that screening selection is still reliant on a person to decide if something is suspect or not. Surely technology would be quicker and also able to asses in 3D as it is a binary decision whether to pull a bag or not - even if it flagged up more bags for secondary screening.

Apparently not, there are just too many variables. Sometimes you cannot better the human eye/brain combination.

We have been pulled up for carrying bars of soap which, we were told, looks very suspicious. On another occasion it was instant coffee granules in sachets.

Security staff at MAN are under great pressure not to miss anything suspicious, get it wrong a couple of times and you are in fear of the consequences. They also have to undergo testing on a regular basis where they monitor the x-ray screen and also complete a test questionnaire. Anything less that 80% is a fail and will result in a opportunity to pass a second test, fail that and it's retraining or job reallocation to a Security Ambassador on less pay. Also X-ray screeners are monitored in whats called the matrix room, where they can also see the x-ray image and check if the operator has missed anything. The whole security area is also closely monitored by CCTV, so if anyone does make a mistake it will be seen and recorded.

What all this pressure does is result in the security staff becoming over cautious to avoid the consequences of missing anything. It's a high pressure job, often working long 12 hour shifts, so please make some allowance next time you are there.

I believe there are newer versions of the x-ray machines used at MAN which do not require liquids to be removed from baggage, as in some US airports. The cost will be astronomical but maybe some day they will be upgraded.

[Mr A Tis]

What all this pressure does is result in the security staff becoming over cautious to avoid the consequences of missing anything. It's a high pressure job, often working long 12 hour shifts, so please make some allowance next time you are there.

Surely the same applies to all other airports ? The main difference at MAN, as has been widely reported, is that when these ridiculous queues appear, it is not the passengers fault or the security staff fault but the fact that 4 or less security lanes are open out of 11 (T3).

I see Aug pax figures have flat lined and I expect this to continue or decline over the next 12 months as people who can make a choice, will do so after this years poor performance / experience.

[LAX_LHR]

The figures have flat lined due to August being the highest proportion of leisure travellers and with that, the loss of 9 based Monarch aircraft is at its peak. the individual boycotts are likely to account for 0.00001% of the loss, no matter how Romaric it would be to think they are the main reason for the dip in passenger figures.

once October hits and the Monarch losses are stripped out, then the true picture will be known if people are avoiding the airport and then we can made valid assessments. Given Easyjet are adding 5 aircraft, Jet2/TUI/MT 2 more each, 2 more BA weekenders, possibly 3 more Ryanair as well as the much lauded Jet Airways and Ethipioan flights, it see,s people still using MAN inthe droves, so, mass boycotts remain an individual case. These airlines work off forecasts and to add all this capacity, the forecasts clearly remain positive rather than negative.

(ps this May seem like post blindly defending MAN, end of the day some days have been s**t and people have the right to make a choice, but I’m sure people can agree balance can come from both sides)