Nice to see some growth from Swiss.....even if it does seem rather conservative, 1x weekly GVA and the BSL slowly creeping back up to a decent frequency!

Does anybody happen to know if we are likely to see Tehran flights return anytime soon? Any likelihood of IR taking up the void left by Mahan? I always understood that after a slowish start the Tehran route was very healthy in terms of loads.

The Tehran route did ok, although I hardly think it set the world on fire in terms of loads! Averaged about 80 per flight, perhaps slightly more after they'd closed their BHX base.

Last I heard, Mahan were trying to sort themselves out and were looking at restarting services on Sept 10th. Obviously this date is now long gone and still no news. Anyone heard anything since?

Mahan Air
 

All that I can add is that they have been suspended from the IATA BSP settlement scheme.

This basically means that normal travel agents are unable to sell and account for their tickets through the GDS systems.

Ticketing via local agents and the interbet would of course still be possible.

A pal of mine flew from MAN for the first time recently. Knowing my links with the place, he shared with me his thoughts. I could have predicted everything he said, before he said it:

The car park bus dropped him "at the station. It's a long walk to the terminal!" Especially because "the travelators weren't working". And of course, T1 (ThomsonFly - nice leather seats) is a bit "up and down and round about" to get anywhere.

But when he arrived back in, he found the station again by "following a nice young lady who looked very nice in her uniform". There's a few of them about, I told him.

So, same old same old. If they can't get the basics right, what hope have they got?

Not surprised that it was a long walk, Tomson"fly" from T2.......:rolleyes:
watp,iktch

T1? T2? Forgive me, I was sleepy.

Nonetheless - u/s travelators is even more of a problem walking to T2!

I think my main point still holds - ask the buses to drop the passengers miles away, then expect them to cart their luggage past broken travelators. Customer service? Pah.

Regarding the travellators, they are not broken but are switched off at night for energy saving purposes between the hours of 00.00 and 04.00. This applies to the C Pier travellators in T1 and the airside ones in T2, as well as those along the skylink. They are switched on by Terminal Control at 04.00. As very few trains and buses arrive between these hours, it is uneconomical to keep them running. If I'm on an early shift, I always walk the length of the skylink when I come on at 5am and start up any travellators that haven't already been switched on. I make it my personal responsibility :)

Regarding the car park/hotel buses, many hotels and independant car parking companies choose to drop off/pick up at the station because it is easier for them to do so at this one central point rather than going to all the terminals. It is their decision to do this and has nothing to do with the airport. The areas outside all three terminals are now open for these buses to use if they want to but many of them have chosen to stay at the station for their own convenience. All MA car park buses, ie - Shuttle Park, T1/2/3 Long Stay and Premier Parking, drop off and pick up outside the terminals.

At my house I have a PIR that puts on the light so I save money on my lighting bill, I just like saving money. Do you think it would be the science of rockets for MAN to PIR the transterminalamogifiers with the same space age teknoliggy?

1 small question. When did all of security become my mate? I don't know them, never have done, so why do they always call me mate? I'm old and looong in the tooth, so a snotty nosed yoof calling mate at 5 am really spits on my ice cream.
Rant done.

Personally, I think that the autowalks should be fitted with sensors so that they don't move unless someone approaches it. This has been trialled at the station with some degree of success, although I don't believe it is as energy efficient as switching them off completely. Obviously in the day, all the autowalks should be fully functioning and in an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem. But escalators/autowalks cease on many occasions throughout the day, mainly due to the emergency stop button being nudged or if there's been an accident, it needs to be switched off for health and safety reasons. The Customer Service teams check the travellators, escalators and lifts throughout all three terminals at regular intervals on each shift and restart autowalks etc if necessary, but obviously this is not always going to be number one priority.

I'm not trying to make excuses here or disspell anyones argument, just want to tell it like it is from my background in Customer Services.

FlyZB- no problem 'mate':E

FlyZB said:

I've seen that before, although it may have been on escalators rather than autowalks - Frankfurt Airport and the railway station, if I remember correctly.

Well, here's the latest from the coal face.

Thai now delaying any new service for another year......Again.:ugh:

PIA B777-300ER delivery in January 08. 747s to return soon...:rolleyes:

Etihad to go twice a day B777/A330 combination.

Qatar looking at B777 and A340 ops.

SIA daily end of October, possible increase to 10 a week and/or B777-300ER.

Oh yes the best til last,

BA JFK service to be B787 by 2012. :\

I see that W5 Mahan Air have a slot request on 1 /11.( only checked that day).

I thought they were having trouble getting back into the UK? Can anyone confirm their slots??

Fuelboy

Manchester Airport Pay discimination.
 

Manchester Airport apparently might have to dig deep if it is found guilty of
discrimination.
It is alleged Hundreds of full time Security staff have given MAN 28 days notice to explain
how it is going to resolve the matter of paying its part-time staff who
complete 20hrs per week. 1.5hr/pay O/T thereafter. So a part-timer who
does 20hrs overtime pw. Total hours worked 40 will receive 50hrs pay.
As you can see part timers are paid 10hrs more pw then full timers if they do 20hrs O/T which they do quite regularly. Allegedly airport was warned 2 years ago about this but did not act.
According to UNITE union the airport are guilty of sex dicrimination, pay discrimination and more.
What do you think ??

Being paid overtime at a higher rate is compensation for:

1 the irregularity of when you receive it (overtime is by its nature unpredictable and at short notice)

2 inconvenience if you'd made other plans

It is also a reward for workers' loyalty and flexibility.

Would full time workers like to give up a 40hr/wk contract to go on to 20hr/wk and hope they get another 20hrs/wk overtime every week? Would that pay the mortgage? No, so that's why the full timers trade some overtime premium for a guaranteed income every week, to pay the bills.

I'm sure the airport lawyers will have agreed these contracts before they were issued.

Is this a non-issue? Is it just the airport unions rattling their sticks in the swill bucket again for some other agenda, perhaps to make themselves look like they're doing something? The airport unions have sadly been impotent for years.

Workers still come; management still treat them badly. Welcome to capitalism.

I would like to add, before you all rip my head off, that I have great sympathy with the poor wages, working conditions, welfare facilities etc. of the ops staff, as well as having to park miles away at 3am to get in for an early start, when the bigwigs park in undercover luxury and only have to waddle across the road to OH at 9am.

Well, here's the latest from the coal face.

Thai now delaying any new service for another year......Again.:ugh:

PIA B777-300ER delivery in January 08. 747s to return soon...:rolleyes:

Etihad to go twice a day B777/A330 combination.

Qatar looking at B777 and A340 ops.

SIA daily end of October, possible increase to 10 a week and/or B777-300ER.

Oh yes the best til last,

BA JFK service to be B787 by 2012.


are these comfirmed?

Gayrugbybloke - where is he??
 

Does anybody know why the above has stopped posting "Rumours, good news, and funnies" to this site. it's been a good few months since we had his witty comments to read? Has he 'Aliassed' himself one time too many?:\

Didn't Vuelo know him...

A chap called GayRugbyMan posts regularly on A.net forum and I think he knows Vuelo too - as his posts on A.net seem very similar to Vuelos on here - not to suggest that Vuelo / GayRugbyBloke / GayRugbyMan are the same person...that would be just wrong :}

A little birdy in OH tells me that there is paperwork on the table and pens drawn for an imminent announcement to come out of Northwest, that being DTW-MAN-DTW with 752s from Summer '08. :ok:

That is on Airliners aswell. Was pretty obvious really. They are also to launch another 2 routes to Europe on top of that. Favorites are CDG and AMS from two other NWA bases.

Now only UA and MAN has the full works!

Are NWA usually cheaper than DL/AA/CO/US to america?

Cheers.
Some good news for the airport anyway! Come on CX!;)

Couldn't CX just put 100 seats on their Cargo a/c and be done with it?:}