Perhaps bmi were hoping Flybe would give the route up when they took over BA Connect, however with the takeover delayed and BA Connect probably operating the route this summer, bmi have decided not to start the route?

I see SN are still holding on to a slot which shows a 0540 arrival from BRU....wonder why they are hanging on to that?

As regards BD, they might regret that decision, considering the transfer possibilities of J class pax from BRU via MAN on to their transatlantic network.

Looks like work will start on changing the mytravel checkin area in March (well above it) into the new secuirty point, also heard today that the arrivals meeting point will be revamped very soon to.

So remind me again how passengers will get from the station to T3 once the new security area is up and running?

I think, although i dont know, there will be a new walk way included in the works from behind travelex to the walk way where the staff secuirty point is, but not that far down more towards T3.

Provisional Passenger Figures
 

The CAA provisional figures for January are out, and more bad news for Ringway. The figure is 1,328,494 which is a fall of 0.3% from the previous January. The rolling 12-month figure is 22,121,150 a rise of 0.2%.
Meanwhile, down the road at Liverpool, the figures are much more encouraging. January saw 363,313 passengers, a 13.9% rise. The rolling 12 month total was 5,006,802 which is an increase of 11.4%.
40 million passengers at Manchester by 2015? They're dreaming! There are clearly plenty of people in the North West of England who are willing to fly, but increasingly they are turning to Liverpool instead of Manchester.

I think you will find that the drop in pax was mainly due to weather and the planned strike by BA ( which I know didn`t happen) but by then most people had either cancelled trips to London or onwards or made alternative arrangements, hence the reason the domestic pax are down 7% or so
So I don`t think it is all gloom and doom

Ian

PS when BA cancelles all flights to Heathrow for a day you take a big hit strait away

So what was the weather like last January? Not much different to this year, as I remember. And probably not much different 20 miles to the west down the M62 either.

Plus the LPL runway is closed at night which has diverted some flights (to MAN possibly!) which it didn't have last year.

MAN has had the "occasional" div, ex LPL......not even 1 per night.
watp,iktch

I don1t remember Manchester losing many flights last winter because of weather, but there were several days when large numbers of dometic flights were cancelled

Ian

My point exactly. Every January there are bad days when traffic is lost due to the weather. This year was no different. So using weather as an excuse for poor traffic figures is bogus, and the last resort for those still clutching at a false reality.

The truth is that MAN is no longer growing because the competing airports have reached critical mass, and commercial and operational credibility, with the airlines, not to mention better customer service and "experience" to the passengers, so between them they are now able to grow viably and profitably at MAN's expense.

MAN is now a mature airport, and should concentrate its investment on improving service levels to impress and retain its existing passengers, rather than this tiresome, endless, dash for growth at the expense of poor service and annoying its neighbours. Then it might deserve and increase the profit per pax it currently earns, rather than only gaining increased profit from increasing passenger volumes.

Just noticed didn`t make it very clear,should have read " large number of flights cancelled this year" i:e Fog in December BA cancelled all dometic flights to MAN for 3 days and also when very windy BA did the same for a day so that totals 22 to from LHR a day, somewhere between 2000/3500 pax per day on the shuttle alone which equates to about 1% of monthly domestic pax per day
The other major problem was the very late cancellation of the strike which if I remember right was last 3 days of Jan which must have had a very large effect on the flights to London. I will have a look at the CAA figures when they are published for the domestic flights and make a few comparisons

Ian

Collision at MAN today...
 

Couldn't find this information anywhere else on the forum.

A PIA 777-200 (AP-BGY) bound for JFK and a Flybe Dash-8 (G-JEDR) were involved in a minor collision just after midday. Apparently the starboard wing of the PK aircraft clipped the rudder of the Flybe aircraft as it taxied out to runway 24R. A lot of fuss regarding this was made in Terminal 2 this afternoon amongst airport and airline officials and rumours have spread that the PK crew have since been impounded. Both aircraft were parked up on the far side of the airfield close to the cargo centre when I left the staff car park late this evening.

Does anyone have any further information to add?

Anyone know if ZB are to announce some more routes ex MAN in the near future? Their ad campaign in the local media seems to imply that they are...

There were mutterings on another airline forum regarding this about a month back but so far nothing has materialised. My guess would be that any new routes will be announced for the winter schedule now, as it is getting a little late to announce new routes starting this summer. Also it's coming up to the time that ZB usually put their winter seats on sale now, so I reckon any announcements will tie in with that.

I have yet to see this ad campaign. In what way did it imply they would be expanding from MAN, Vuelo?

It's going to be up to 12 more days before the Flybe/BACon deal goes through

Does anyone know how many pax Manchester has through each terminal in a year? I suspect T1 is busiest followed by T3. Also comparing summer and winter, T3 is probably flatter all year round whereas T2 is presumably busier in the summer?
My hunch is there is spare capacity mostly in T2 in the winter but i may be wrong?

T1 for year 9, 560, 598
T2 for year 7, 559, 148
T3 for year 4, 971, 984

It looks fairly even for the year for each terminal but I will have a closer look for you

Ian

There is loads of spare capacity at T2 during the afternoons and evenings, but its gates are generally full in the mornings with long-haul. T2 can be very quiet on winter evenings, with just KL, AF and maybe KM due in and out. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to transfer a larger T1 user over to T2, but there'd be a gate problem until about midday.

I thought they were supposed to be extending T2 towards the M56 westwards, but that seems to have gone very quiet too.