Steady on, I'm sure immergration at MAN help reduced the "real" waiting times for baggage.

Didn't take long for someone to come up with a negative did it. Howver not sure what immergration is.

However reading the article 'all respondents were then asked ‘Baggage carousels aside, what do you consider to be the most time consuming aspect of the airport experience in the UK?’ to which the majority of respondents, 33 per cent, stated ‘security/customs’. As well as this, respondents also considered ‘check in’ (27 per cent) and ‘boarding’ (21 per cent) to be some of the most time consuming aspects of travelling via an airport.' No mention of immigration although I guess Joe public may refer to that as customs.

In terms of leaving it to a survey to see how long people wait at baggage carousels, surely the handling agents can, on request, supply the times from chocks on to first bags, or, is it only certain airlines/companies who record this for targets etc?

That way, its could provide a more accurate, and surely larger demographic, of waiting times (this survey size was a couple of thousand compared to the x million people who actually do fly per year).

For example, flight XYZ111 arrives at 1200 if Mrs Jones gets off the plane at 1205, then queues at immigration until 1235, and waits until 1245 for her bags, then she may only record for a 10 minute wait, whereas the bags actually took 45 minutes to arrive.

On the flipside Mr Bloggs gets off the plane at 1204, queues at immigration until 1215 but waits until 1245 at the same carousel as Mrs Jones, his bag wait time will be 30 minutes, so already there is a 'discrepancy'.

Therefore Chocks on (1200) until 1st bags (1245) is the more accurate measure.

First and last bag times are all recorded by the airport systems (In MAN's case, Chroma) and are all important to airlines, scheduled carriers especially, it's usually written into the handling contract.

One of the MEB3 expect first bag to be on the carousel 10mins after 'on chocks'.

Lots of experience on this one at MAN. Different handling agents have massively differing performance. Emirates flights are usually spot on, BA is always touch and go either way as are Thomson and Ryanair. Monarch and easyjet are horrific. Not sure of the handling agents for each respective airline.

Airlines like Emirates will always shout the loudest, and as such, will usually always get the service they want from handling agents. Those airlines without their own ground staff and who do not actively monitor handling agent performance will continue to get a sh!te service from the two big handling agents at MAN :ok:

So why don't all airlines monitor performance?

Personal record with Emirates was 8 minutes from doors opened to in car on the way home. (albeit from First) On the flip side Monarch, cleared immigration within 15 minutes of doors open, (from row 15 of a 321) and then waited a further 55 minutes for luggage.

In the case of the latter, immigration wasn't a factor, purely down to poor baggage delivery.

Whilst I'm sure EK et al are demanding upon the airport/handling agents there are other carriers who have the airport jumping through hoops, and they aren't necessarily the airlines you expect.

Was not being negative just saying it may not be as clear as the PR around it. As for the miss spelling it was predictive text that changed it.

LAX explained my point much better!

American are putting the 757 back on ORD 19 August.

AA/US merger shown lots of changes, first CLT cut by around 4 weeks and now 763 being replaced mid season to a 757.

Fedex A300 on approach to MAN. N727FD as FDX9063

The CLT route starts today and AA is expecting American passengers to make up most of the market and not the MAN catchment, and they hope to run it for longer next year according to the Evening News

Thanks for the M.E.N. story Ringwayman. The publicity should please Bagso.

Looking at available seats on the web site for the CLT flights in the first few days, (I know this is only a guide), bookings look reasonable - only 2 seats showing today for the outbound. Perhaps later in June early July will be a better test when there are no school holidays.

Disappointing that Chicago is going back to a B757 so early. From a quick look, it does however appear to be daily in the winter at this stage, unless someone knows differently. I had a feeling it went down to 5 or 6 weekly some years.
On the other hand, PHL is shown as a A333 on certain days I checked but I guess that could change also.

On yesterday's diversions, apart from an EI that went to BHX and the AY to AMS, the rest were all BA as far as I know, to LGW, BHX, NCL and MAN. It still
surprises me how long some of those long haul flights are able, and prepared, to hold for LHR. There were some serious delays yesterday and I was curious how much longer some of them could have held out before diverting as I imagine the length of delay was not easily predictable.

j636

Suggestion from old fogie - try disabling useless technology, end engaging useful brain!!

Oh the irony of it:ouch::ouch:

Yes..Mr Manfod rejoicing in Bagso towers hopefully they have put out some PR in CLT as well. But I doubt it !

Still bemused that despite claiming to represent a catchment area of 2 hours they only ever seem to be able to generate any PR in the M E N , a relatively narrow geographic and demograhic channel !

Re MANFOD -

It's pretty annoying that capacity is being decreased and also that people are seemingly under the illusion that the demand isn't there hence the downgrading of equipment. The problem is the prices. The prices certainly don't point to any problems in filling seats. It all smells to me like airlines are consolidating operations so that they can charge top dollar for a smaller amount of seats.

An example of this is I want to make our yearly summer trip to Florida and to fly to the USA in mid-July it will cost me £5,5k for 5 people to get to Miami. Considering it will cost 2k in food, at least 2k in hotel costs... Going to Florida just isn't possible this year. We have even considered going MAN-MCO with Virgin and then driving down. Low and behold though Virgin are charging exactly the same for one flight as it would cost to go on 2 via JFK/ORD with AA or with US Airways via PHL/CLT to MIA.

I paid 2,5k for 5 people to go via LHR to MIA with BA a few years ago, why it is double this year across the board with capacity being increased I just cannot fathom.

Depends how long a few years ago was. The levels of APD tax, and the rise in fuel price has made a significant difference to prices compared to (say) 2007. Having said that a quick search of one of the price websites shows MAN-MIA via Charlotte for £825 (so £4,250 for 5) going out July 14th, returning July 29th, so may be not quite as bad as you think.

open skies between the USA & Europe was meant open up competition, all that's happened is the legacy carriers have code shares and alliances and are using this power to make a killing on these routes to prop up other loss making routes, why do you think they have launched a major assault in the US to stop Norwegian flying between Europe and the USA?

BLUE ASHY

Won't help you this year but next year Thomas Cook will be doing non-stop MAN-Miami.
Apart from the convenience of a non-stop, I imagine they will be cheaper than the legacies.
I would book now for next year to get the best deals if I were you.