LAX yes Dublin are very strong heading west, but you cannot deny the fact that we have sustain direct flights to places such as IAH and SEA, of which would've seemed obsurred just over a decade ago. I can also see a lot of opportunities for Manchester looking west. Two possible destinations in my opinion would be the resumption of Washington and maybe somewhere like San Jose and San Diego, two very popular destinations, especially in the summer months. So I cannot see why Man could not sustain 3 or 4 flights a week to those destinations a week.

Er, first class train and plane are public transport.

As a priority we could do with seeing primary cities like Los Angeles and Boston with a year round and preferably daily service rather than scatter gun service to secondary holiday destinations. Washington needs a daily year round as the US capital. Chicago is now a short season service and must be in the 'at risk' category. It's a shame that VS and MT can't somehow avoid flying to BOS and SFO on the same days at the same time, leaving gaping holes in the services across the week. The same is going to happen with LAX next year.
Taken overall though, MAN's US offering is a leap on from where it was 5 years ago.

A welcome development for those like me who usually fly Economy, the Qatar A359 is a much nicer ride than the B788 in my experience.

Between the aircraft type change and additional flights I make that a 22% increase in seats for Qatar on the route. With EK's 3x daily A380, Oman also now using their latest kit, Cathay upgrading to A350-1000, and Jet Airways about to start to India there really is an incredible amount of capacity and choice heading East from MAN nowadays compared to just a few years ago

Very interesting selection of easyjet, I personally thought they might have looked to utilise areas from where monarch left a gaping hole such as direct flights to mainland Croatia.

I guess only time will tell as to whether or not easyjet look to further expand their diversification of different European destinations from where they currently are.
​​​​​​Additionally, I believe that Volos is a wise and quite out of the box route to be starting up, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Have ridden both several times now and the A350, I agree, is a much more sophisticated aircraft and a nicer ride. For me it's the best plane in the sky at the moment from a pax perspective.

Damn, i used to enjoy the odd quiet late shift.

The A350 will give customers a much more contemporary and futuristic experience, with on-board LED lighting and a broad variety of channels to choose from, it will be truly luxurious.

Signs that EasyJet are still planning their apparent big expansion at MAN that was postponed this summer?

June stats:

Terminal pax up 3.4%
Total pax up 3.45%
Freight down 6.99%

Over 93,000 more pax in June this year.
The rolling 12 months total pax incl. transit is now over 28m.
Terminal pax is just 86,000 below the 28m.

The 787 has on-board LED lighting and a broad variety of channels to choose from.....

Yes, however the LED lighting on the A350 looks a lot better in many ways. Also, I find the 787 is a little too over cramped, and the screens are nowhere near as impressive as the A350, which has a wider and sleeker layout from what I can see.
If you're travelling on business class, the Cirrus seats provide a lot more legroom conpared to the 787, so in turn you feel a lot more comfortable and relaxed rather than on a 788 or for that matter 789.

5 or 6 Jet2 aircraft to go fron T1 to T2 will help matters

Aren't TCX penciled in for a move to T2 when the new extension opens ? - even with TCX/Jet2 moving Ops to T2, parking space will very limited across the airport for next summer. No doubt there will be further increases from RYR/Jet2/CFE/TCX etc.. in due course too.

As a consumer in the north-west, I don't feel today's announcement is as good as what everyone is making out. None of these are routes that Easyjet haven't served from the north-west before, or currently do.

Take for example Lisbon. That route actually has Easyjets highest load factor out of Liverpool (I know its not the be all and end all but a good sign of its success). They now appear to be discontinuing it from there and moving it to Manchester, where they will take on TAP and Ryanair. Not only do I have one less airport to choose from when flying to Lisbon but there's a risk TAP could reduce its frequency/withdraw.

This is nothing new, and a similar pattern with Bordeaux, Innsbruck etc. As a fare paying passenger I just feel competition and choice are being whittled down from this region a little bit each year (even with Blackpool closing a few years ago, not Easyjets fault!).

I know why they do it, get more of a monopoly on something you can charge more per seat!

On the other hand, as for Barcelona, Faro and Lanzarote, I think it might just make prices more competitive between Jet2 and Ryanair. Not likely to affect any legacy or smaller carriers. In that sense I suppose that type of competition will benefit the local consumer.

TUI have announced that they are starting direct flights from Manchester to Aqaba, Muscat, and Langkawi in Malaysia, I would imagine that LGK would even a seasonal destination, unsure about the other 2.

The CAA report is crap, i.e. so poorly written that it boarders on arbitrary. However, it seems MAN clearly has or has had issues with the handling of disabled passengers. It is also pretty clear that the airlines are probably even worse. I would guess that there are some airlines that are much worse than others and are also much less likely to be willing to pay for quality service at an airport. Smaller airports tend to do better, and this may be because they are 'minimum gauge' on the service, where as the larger airports are much more dependent on specific staffing levels. Incidentally, this isn't a survey and the CAA doesn't make directly, accessible reference to the passenger satisfaction survey results for individual airports, just the industry as a whole.

Northsky I think you will find that most of those routes were ex Monarch ones and have been crying out for someone to step in and take them on,
Easyjet were trying to get them up and going this year but it proved just too difficult so this should put us back where we were before the demise of Monarch
I am suprised they are moving the Lisbon from Liverpool but maybe they think they can make more money or they had a gap to fill

Ian

All depends on what MAN does with their capacity declarations. If the terminal is oversubscribed at specific times then some flights will have to move to other times. Incidentally, T2, according to the ACL S18 start report, is nowhere near it's declared passenger capacity for any point in the day, both arrivals and departures and 60 and 120 min capacities. T1 and T3 have times when they are either are or, very briefly, just over their capacities. Of course the MAN may be declaring way too much capacity, especially if the next phase is more disruptive.

EU1107/2006 removed the responsibility of PRM provision from airlines individually - who used to be able to contract with any of a range of competing suppliers - and handed that responsibility to airports, who by and large have contracted with a single supplier for their entire PRM requirements, the costs of which are then met by a PRM levy on every passenger's ticket. All of the airports assessed in this year's CAA report have a monopoly provider for PRM assistance so it's a level playing field - and one backed by EU regs - in that respect. I think there are a couple of airports where the operator provides the service with its own staff, but for the mostpart, it is contracted out to third parties who are then managed (or not) by the airport operator.

Having flown through MAN T3, EMA and STN all in the last month, there is a common theme through all three of a total lack of customer service. For balance, I've also flown through GLA, EDI, LHR, LGW too, all of which have been far better. I find the MAG airports to be poor in comparison. Security queues at all three are routinely longer than anywhere else; they are still paying people to shout at you for daring to look at your mobile phone when in the lengthy queue; there is a lack of airside seating particularly in MAN T3 and even basics like cleaning and toilet checks are poor - EMA this week was a disgrace. I don't know if they have someone in MAG responsible group-wide for security and customer services, but if they have, the individual needs to be replaced by someone competent. Other airports are managing infrastructure and big construction projects well, alongside delivering a customer experience on a day-to-day basis. Grand though MAG's future plans are - and I'm sure they will improve things - there are still several million passengers going through their airports in the meantime for whom the experiences are pretty grim. I'm not surprised they're bottom of every league table going - it reflects the customer reality of all three airports today.