All I can think of someone resurrecting Etihad deciding between DUB and MAN for the extra frequency? But as you say, if we've got a jump in capacity there's not much call for more flights to be introduced!

Manchester actually got more seats than Dublin

Ian B

Small news but from 03 May SWISS MAN-ZRH upgrades from A319 to A320. All three of the week day services.

If past form is anything to go by BA regularly abandon their MAN customers. I've worked too many shifts where all you can hear is the PA advising pax to go home and rebook. The lucky few, J/C class thrus will get rerouted but others are left to sort their own problems out.

We don't mind, we're glad to carry their disgruntled pax. :ok:

Total change in topic.

Heard a rumour the other day that Etihad are increasing their frequency from MAN. Don't know destination, timings or equipment.

Probably nonsense considering the loads and the change to a 777 this year.

Anyone else heard anything?

Not this summer, the upgrade from the 06th June is +150 pax and thats all they have planned for the moment i believe.

EY making something of it:

Man City sponsors Etihad special offer to mark 777 aircraft operating to Manchester - Manchester City FC

A decent marketing effort for a change.

OltonPete.

Ref:Qatar.

Much of their increasing passenger numbers are destined for Dubai, not Doha or other connections.
They fly with Qatar either for their ridiculously good value advance fares that frequently undercut Emirates by £200+ return in economy, or ever more frequently because Emirates is fully booked and they have to fly with either Qatar or Etihad. With Etihad you have a pain in the butt coach trip to get to Dubai. With Qatar, obviously you get flown there via Doha, hence why Qatar benefits more from Emirates fullness compared to Etihad.

Problem for Qatar is twofold:
The advance cheap seats they are filling to Dubai can't be making them much margin. You can fly with Qatar to Dubai for less than you can fly just to Doha!
When Emirates bring on more capacity (third daily and/or A380), the people 'forced' to fly with them disappear.
Marginal yield and fickle passengers don't make for immediate expansion looking a great idea.
Shame really as their service is first rate in my own experience.

You also seem to carry a fair number of their commuting crew from LHR to MAN as well, which always strikes me as slightly odd.

Although it pains me to have less space on my commute, it's good to see loads on BMI MAN-LHR-MAN have jumped up in the last few weeks :)

GEB

I dont agree with your theory that QR will loose out to EK

I have used QR several times over the last few years and in my opinion the service is superior to EK. The passengers transfer all over the QR network and only a few go on to DXB.

We all seem to encourage these middle east airlines, but what we are actually seeing is the end of any possibility of far east, Australian or African carriers returning to MAN. It will be a brave airline that takes on the money of the Gulf carriers.

MAN777

I'm not saying (and hope Qatar wont) lose out to Emirates.
What I believe is that Qatars options for expansion are limited by the behemoth local competition that is Emirates. (Same goes for Etihad as well)
I'm convinced with their excellent service they can maintain a daily service - just unsure as to whether they can grow any further.

As an aside, many tour operators are now automatically booking their ex:MAN package holiday clients to Dubai via Qatar airways. Obviously this is not for convenience, it's on cost. When Emirates add significant extra capacity (and hence have plenty of spare seats to dump onto the market) these bookings will just vanish for Qatar.

Try most airlines, they are exactly the same. They want transfer traffic...

I think MAN777 makes an important point that the Gulf carriers take away the opportunity for services to Hong Kong, China, India, Australia and Africa etc. They suck up some much of the traffic with cheap fares. The recent SQ decision to go via MUC is driven by less demand because of this competition. People on this board praise these carriers however I am not sure of their value however I guess MAN is now hooked by them since Dubai is now one of the biggest routes and there is no alternative! They provide no competitive advantage for MAN.

Not sure I agree with you mybrico.
The Gulf carriers are busy precisely because there are no direct longer routes & people have wised up to Big Airways & avoiding LHR.
As for Singapore, the reduction is not based on lack of demand, but tactical manipulation of the UK market ( ie we need to fill our A380s from LHR).
Whilst these Gulf carriers do carry an awful lot to China & HKG, so do Lufthansa, Air France / KLM. Plenty of demand from this area.
There are also plenty of Chinese cargo 747s passing daily through here, some (cargo) of which could be diverted onto pax flights making direct services more viable.

Change of subject,

Last week we had an early afternoon departure and it took 35 minutes from push back
to reaching the hold at 5L. The reason being the taxi way to the hold was closed part way down for work, so we had to enter the runway and come off again on the other side of the work in progress. Of course this all had to be carried out between landings
and take off,as single runway operation was in force.
Is this long term work or did we just pick the wrong day.
Jubilee

Spanair launching BHX-MAD.

For all those MAN-MAD 'cherios' (quoting a now very popular and annoying TV show), would MAN not be their first port of call if the traffic was there?!:confused:

Got good news from the BA strike.....we've got a single shuttle service back: BA1398/1405 on the 20th.

Mybrico,

I understand you to a point but at least these middle east carriers have been loyal to MAN and to many other regional UK airports where other larger carriers have either turned and run or not taken the gamble to operate the services (SQ at MAN aside). You are probably right on one hand that they will always put off say Cathay starting any sort of service but at least you know they're here to stay and are commited.

Last week we had an early afternoon departure and it took 35 minutes from push back
to reaching the hold at 5L. The reason being the taxi way to the hold was closed part way down for work, so we had to enter the runway and come off again on the other side of the work in progress. Of course this all had to be carried out between landings
and take off,as single runway operation was in force.
Is this long term work or did we just pick the wrong day.
Jubilee

Think you may have been unlucky, as there was no sign of such work when I flew through on Monday. Maybe it was emergency work.
Maybe early afternoon was chosen due to it being relatively quiet. (Hence the single runway ops, as much as this must have messed things about)

Last week, one morning (can't remember which day, but I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday), 05L was closed; 05R was therefore single operations. Aircraft were backtracked in between landings and departures. Beautiful configuring by Tower.

But they've been backtracking aircraft on 05L for a while: bringing them on at B to backtrack, vacating them at AE to hold at A1.

Spanair Madrid?
 

quote

"would MAN not be their first port of call if the traffic was there?!"

Are there any rumours?

Manchester appears in the Spanair timetable but not the drop-down
booking engine?

There appears to be quite a few destinations in the timetable
which show no frequency and are not in the booking engine either?

Are these connecting flights via a code-share?

Pete