Anyone know when GB AIRWAYS second A320 arrives at Manchester, it's sometime this month.

Well it must be soon as services to Marrakesh, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and daily Tenerife start in three weeks. I hear Rhodes and Rome may be on the agenda for next sumner, too.

Yeh the next GB Airways A320 at MAN is on its way very soon. My mate has almost finished his CC training with them ready for the increase in flights.

Oops! The £500,000 jet prang
 

Small photo at http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/me...et_prang_.html

IT is the parking prang that will cost more than £½ million.

Ground staff reversing a passenger jet at Manchester Airport accidentally struck an aircraft hangar causing a long delay for more than 300 passengers - and a six-figure bill for holiday firm Thomas Cook.

The rudder on the Airbus 330 was twisted in the prang during a routine maintenance check by engineers.



Thomas Cook was immediately forced to cancel its scheduled flight to Cuba and scour airports around the world for a replacement aircraft big enough to take the 333 disappointed passengers.

After a frantic search, the only available stand-in plane was found - a Boeing 747 in Madrid.

It cost Thomas Cook £200,000 to charter the plane from a firm called Air Pullmantur and then to fly it from Spain to Manchester.

Meanwhile, the firm also had to pay an estimated £150,000 to fly a new rudder to Manchester in a Hercules cargo plane from the Airbus factory in Toulouse, France.

Repairing the damage is expected to cost an additional £200,000. And then there was the expense of arranging hotels for the 333 stranded passengers and supplying them with meal vouchers - another bill of around £25,000.

As the holidaymakers left Manchester Airport for Cayo Coco 30 hours late, Thomas Cook bosses were said to be "furious" at the sky-high cost of the minor crash.

It is understood it occurred while the aircraft was being moved on the ground by staff working for Monarch Aircraft Engineering.

Grandfather Kaz Janski, a holidaymaker from Huddersfield, was with a family of five who paid £4,000 for their trip.

Shortly before he finally boarded the replacement plane for the 10-hour flight, he said: "We were already in the departure lounge when we were eventually told we would be spending the night in Manchester."

A Thomas Cook spokesman said: "We did everything we could to help our passengers following the delay caused by this situation."

A spokesman for Monarch Aircraft Engineering said: "We can confirm that damage was caused to an aircraft while it was being manoeuvred. An investigation has been launched."

I have read rumours on other sites of Delta to be announcing MAN-JFK next week (along with ATL-EDI) and they seem to be coming from more than one person

I understand DL may be announcing MAN-JFK on Tuesday

The 2nd GB A320 arrives on 29th late on and starts flying on the 30th with the start of the winter timetable.

Winter service reductions
 

Seems like the airport will be very quiet this winter with a number of services terminating and other with reduced frequency.
Stopping for the winter at least are:
Maersk to Copenhagen
Monarch to Madrid
Air Berlin to Dusseldorf
Air Berlin to Berlin
Jet2 to Nice
Btitish London Airways too numerous to list

Reduced services by Jet2 to Alicante and Faro. Although to be fair to Jet2 there will be flights to ski destinations such as Geneva and Chambery.There may well be other services that I haven't noticed like the Air Canada but thats generally summer only.

On a more positive note
Add extra SkyEurope to Saltzburg ( I think)
Flybe extra SOU flight and then from Jan/Feb EXT and BHD
Aer Arann to IOM
Plus Probably
Etihad and extra Qatar

G-I-B

Cathay Pax back to MAN
 

The long rumoured return of Cathay pax services to be MAN will be announced v v soon.

HKG - MAN with a 75min stop in Moscow.
The A340 will operate the route.

Some final "issues" being dealt with at the Moscow end.

Standby

Noone in the know seems to know anything about this Cathay service proposal! The airline has been applying for slots for years, but dont seem any nearer starting a service.

What evidence do you have for this new information?

Playamar2..... Air Berlin stopped the DUS-MAN service a while ago already .

But are to introuduce Man STN twice daily I believe.

Gayrugbyblahblahblah.....

AirBerlin MAN-STN

Sounds like a 'feeder' service to me!

Expect a pull-out from the two
remaining direct services - soon ?

MM

Cathay start in march 3 times a week with a stop in moscow using A343 arriving 0815 departing 1000

:ok: rampman

next summer
 

Any news on flybe other routes if any and GB if it still 3 base next year and what new routes if any.

GB are not basing a 3rd aircraft at MAN until 2007. Therefore, it maybe that we do not see any new routes...unfortunately. DBV is back next summer after a winter break and it will be interesting to see whether the canary island flights continue for the summer, i would imagine they will. Should this be the case there will be little scope to expand our route network from MAN due to having just the 2 aircraft. It's a shame really because several of BACX dropped routes would fit nicely into GB's network as i have always said. However, considering they have just been at MAN for little over 6 months the current rate of expansion has been good. GB is finding it tough competing against LS, WW and MON in particular but we are on top of the game and offer a far superior service.
Yes ...... i am an employee!:p

Dubrovnil hasn't exactly been setting any records! The other services are doing very well. GB would do well to tap in to the summer Greek market. Rhodes, Heraklion, Corfu and Zante would all be good options for summer next year.....get in there before ZB does...!!

Apparently ZB are de to announce some new services from MAN soon.....my money's on Rimini and Venice.

A 73% load factor for a brand new route aint too bad though.

Interesting to point out to ye lot that within the GB network - out the top 3 routes MAN had two of them. (LGW-FNC was busiest)

A 93% load factor on the PFO and low 90's for the AGP and TFS routes.

Yeah heard about MAN having two top routes out of three within the network. DBV has been rather difficult by all accounts this year (funny destination choice if you ask me) but nevertheless it will be back next year. Was speaking to John Patterson (MD) the other week and it was then he said that it was tough at MAN and that he wanted GB to fly from MAN a few years ago when there was little LCC activity at MAN. The decision to operate mainly longer routes has helped though and in that respect has kept apace with MON and in front of EZY and LS etc. One challenge for MAN in respect of GB services is to increase Club Europe figures. I usually reply to the "theres no high yield from MAN" argument sayin there is but i see this as being a big challenge on leisure routes which are GB's bread and butter. That said, there are many northerners out there that are as tight as a ducks ar*se all year but who will splash out on holidays.

I don\'t see the Greek Islands bein ready quite ready for scheduled flights from MAN. Property ownership there is no where near that in Spain, Portugal or the canaries. In terms of GB i can see Faro being a new destination. I personally believe also that some leisure/business routes could be attempted. For example, FCO and BCN. FCO has been dropped by BACX and BCN is only operated by MON since WW and IB dropped the route. I used to be a travel agent and getting a BCN flight was very difficult.