Dual Runway Ops at MAN / EGCC
 

Significant difference between today and when the permission for R2 was granted is the extreme peaks in traffic that are experienced at Slot 2 (1300 - 1600) due to the increased number of short haul routes by based aircraft.

This, added the the 'usual' increase in traffic towards the evening period means that dealing with flows at these times whilst on single runway operations is becoming more challenging - hence the decision to increase the hours of dual operations.

Surely this must be a cause for celebration for everyone who has the best interests of MAN at heart and the huge role it plays in the success and promotion of the North?

why not report it, can't be that difficult for them to find the culprit?

Same thing........saw an Audi Q7 doing about 50-60 after screaming off the roundabout near T3 , and then swung into the T3 Meet and Greet car park.

Airport Drivers
 

I work at the airport and see these muppets tear arsing around all day in whatever car they are driving. Its ok saying report it but believe me it's not one driver its the majority. Also its not just staff employed by the airport driving these cars, its also off site car parking companies moving cars from/too the airport on behalf of customers, so how do you know who to report any incident too? Don't say the Police because they wouldn't prosecute anyone when its one persons word against the other. Letting the public see/hear what's going on and stopping leaving their vehicles with these companies and hitting them in the wallet is the way to curb it. I wouldn't let them near my pushbike never mind my car.

Its been going on for years, I used to live on the Old Ringway road which was practically a racetrack for bored low paid drivers working for the hire car companies and parking companies.

If enough people complain then the Police will do something about it. The airport and adjoining roads are bristling with CCTV so it would be really easy to prosecute offenders.

There are several airport based beat officers who would love to put together local initiatives, much of what they do is reactive so unless they know whats going on it will continue.

Easyjet S14 now on sale. Looks like no change from this summer at all. Hopefully new flights/routes tba another time, but with more LGW to play with I think other airports will be hard pushed for any expansion hopes.

S14 EasyJet Manchester–Venice

Not a new route, its operating this year as a seasonal route.
J VCE

Venice on EZY is Not new for 2014 and is a three weekly round year service fully bookable through the coming northern winter schedule.
Operates each tuesday/thursday and sunday through to 27th March 2014.

Thereafter the sunday of the 30th March is non op and changes for a saturday service from 5th April 2014 through to 14th June 2013- After that its not yet bookable.

Simply put it is not a new service from 2014 just a continuation if the existing service into the summer timeframe.

I realise that now, but the PR spin from easyJet says:

Newly introduced summer destinations for easyJet include:

London Gatwick – Bucharest, Romania from £39.99*
Manchester to Venice, Italy from £25.99*
Liverpool – Larnaca, Cyprus from £35.99*
London Stansted to Sofia, Bulgaria from £31.99*

Note the word 'from'. By the time you've added the return fare and the extras the fare will be well into 3 figures. The old old story 'buyer beware'

I have witnessed such reckless driving on Moss Lane off Styal Road. Not uncommon to see numerous hi-vis vest wearing drivers hurtling towards me coming from the car storage parks, in the middle of what seems a narrow road at speed!
If there hasn't been an accident yet then it's surely a matter of time!

Traffic boom continues
 

Meanwhile, at an airport near you, traffic continues to boom. Passengers up over 7% on August last year, and running at nearly 20.4 million p.a. , movements up too. Could be close to 21 million by year end. A second daily A380, temporary but sure to be permanent before long, increased dual-runway hours, Saudia coming back next year, and who knows what else. Bad news is getting harder to find at MAN these days. As long as investment keeps ahead of demand, the future looks decidedly bright.

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/alldocs/707CD8E05D7B7ACE80257BDC00485C09/$File/August+13.pdf

"Traffic boom"
 

Whilst the growth is remarkable, there is still a bit of a climb left to get to the pre-recession levels of 2005 and 2006 (both years saw 22.4m pax).

May I remind you about the London Olympics in August last year and this resulted in only a 1.7% growth. This was the month with the second lowest growth in 2012 after May (May bank holiday moved to June and there was the Queens Jubilee the first weekend in June). To put this August's passenger number in to perspective, there was 7 462 passenger less than in August 2008 and the all time high for August came one year earlier (2007) and up to that level MAN still need to handle 139 842 more passengers than this year. My prediction for the number of terminal passengers in 2013 now stands at just above 20.7 million.

It looks like Jet 2 will be adding passengers to their 2014 throughput, I have had a quick look at the Summer 2014 schedule (based on August 2014) and the number of weekly departures currently stands at 169 x weekly (compared to 146 x weekly this year)

There is only one new route, Fuerteventura (2 x weekly) which basically replaces the 2 x weekly Tel Aviv service which ends in November this year, so the growth will be generated by increasing frequencies on a number of existing routes ......

Extra services will operate to Alicante (1 x weekly) Barcelona (1 x weekly) Bodrum (1 x weekly) Budapest (2 x weekly) Corfu (1 x weekly) Dalaman (1 x weekly) Faro (1 x weekly) Heraklion (1 x weekly) Ibiza (2 x weekly) Las Palmas (1 x weekly) Kos (1 x weekly) Lanzarote (1 x weekly) Palma (3 x weekly) Paphos (1 x weekly) Pisa (1 x weekly) Reus (1 x weekly) Rhodes (1 x weekly) Tenerife (2 x weekly) and Zante (1 x weekly) = 24 x weekly, with Paris CDG reducing by 1 x weekly to give the overall increase of 23 x weekly services

The growth appears to last for most of the Summer timetable, checking the week at the end of May when half term commences see's a weekly schedule of 146 x weekly (compared to 127 x weekly in May of this year) and should come on the back of increased Winter throughput, where there seems to be an increase in flights to the Canairies, as well as Faro operating through the Winter (I think for the first time) and Palma commencing 2014 operations from February (earlier than usual)

There's been a number of accidents with the valet parking boy racers, one car even ended up on it's roof outside the BP Petrol Station!

Below picture is taken from a friends FB account, it seems the valet drivers parking is just as bad as their driving!!!

http://i42.tinypic.com/2s9shud.jpg

Wonder if Qatar Airways are about to announce something?

Seem to have teamed up with Ducati to announce 'an unexpected arrival'.

Apparently all will be revealed on 12th. May be nothing but seems they have gone to a lot of effort over something?.......

Just a fancy competition involving bikes and Qatar???
 

My guess would be a competition to win tickets to the Doha MotoGP next April with Flights on Qatar.

It's run at night due to the heat.