But at that stage it is too late to up the staffing level.

The airport should have approximate figures by knowing the number of flights - flights x number of seats x probably load factor = passengers.

Absolutely! The number of passengers should not be a surprise.

I do wonder who owns the passenger experience at MAN as we see this and regular references to unpleasant staff at security, together with travellators out of service…..

Given the state of the travel industry at the moment you would like to think Manchester Airport valued its customers & offered them the best ever passenger experience.
what’s happening now is nothing new for MAN , the security has always been under resourced even pre Covid.
Even when I passed through the new T2 departures, they managed to have only one measly security lane open- which also doubled as fast track.
Get a grip MAN or people given a choice, will never come back here,

Sadly, the pressure in the security queues is about to ease. Germany has just announced that they are joining France and Israel in banning leisure travel from the UK. Netherlands is entering a strict lockdown ... fancy heading into that for Christmas? Portugal talking travel bans as well. No doubt more bad news incoming from our continental neighbours very soon.

From what I've heard on the ground a couple of things have actually happened.

The first being that the airport did know how many passengers they were expecting at the time but a large number of staff are now isolating due to a Covid outbreak, meaning that even with the best will in the world there will only be a finate number of staff available to work, which when your available workforce is decimated by 40% then any industry will suffer.

On top of this a large number of passengers (not confirmed, just opinion from someone on the ground), are now arriving 1-1.5 hours before departure and suddenly being caught out.

I guess it doesn't help when flight departures are bunched together in waves but I believe that passengers are advised to arrive earlier than they normally would for exactly this reason. I know the several times I've flown in the past year I've arrived 3 hours early, a couple of times being caught up in big queues but also on occasion flying through.....

That would be a fair call, Sportzbar, if not for the airport tweet stating that staff absences were not Covid related. Perhaps there is some mistaken reluctance to admit that Covid is affecting staff numbers. It would be surprising, however, it passenger behaviour has suddenly changed to allow less time to pass through the terminal just when airlines are advising them to allow more time.

I wouldn't believe tweets put out by companies at the moment. Personally Im more inclined to believe my family member working on the frontline dealing with this very issue who himself has just come back from a 10 day period of isolation.

Social media is a great way of getting information to your customers and other media outlets very quickly but as in this case and indeed in the rail industry where I work, a common theme is the wrong information being "tweeted", mainly because the person who is operating the account at that time is only working with the information provided and not with the actual facts....

Biman now arriving on Christmas Day and departing Boxing Day 20:00hr. Which is nice for all concerned. :ugh:

Passengers advised to get in the queue now

Unfortunately, if you're flying with the likes of Loganair, Blue Island or Eastern the check in would not open until 2 hours before, so there is no point in arriving earlier. Not to mention, if you are doing a 30 minute hop to the Isle of Man - do you really want to arrive 3 hours before? On that basis it would be quicker to drive to Liverpool & fly from there.

But the problem isn't the people being told to check-in two hours before . It's the people who are being advised (by their airline) to check in three hours before. It was the likes of passengers flying with Jet2, TUI etc that were causing problems by arriving 1.5-2 hours before departure, therefore ignoring the advice of the carrier.

Of course this has all been exacerbated by MAG management themselves laying off 100s of experienced security staff and then not bringing them back. On top of this (despite the denials to the press) they are suffering staff shortages due to Covid isolation rules.

Its a perfect storm of people disregarding the advice given by their airline (and then wanting to blame anyone else but themselves) and inept management decisions all whipped up to create a story that gets "clicks" and sells newsprint....

Well whisper it but i do have some good news. Manchester has finally joined the cargo revenue and employment opportunity that every other airport seems to be milking.

747F due 23rd, and apparently the first of 5.

You may want to have your blood pressure tablets handy if you’re talking about the Longtail flights. It emerged last week that they are now going to Bournemouth as the handling agent (Swissport I think) who had signed up for them changed their mind.

Cue much gnashing and wailing, but if they can’t get a handler what can the airport do in the current climate? Staff shortages and penalty clauses with existing customers won’t fill many handling agents with enthusiasm for ad hoc work.

All of the handling agents are under extreme staffing pressures at the moment and not just at MAN. Swissport are in a very dire situation at the moment and are causing severe knock-on effects that are effecting the whole airport. The last thing they need is the complexity of handling ad-hoc freighter flights.

Bournemouth ?

I'd be interested to know how the logistics work down there.

Given there can be 12 hours between movements where do Bournemouth pull the staff from. They can't be hanging around being paid waiting for the odd 747 to drop in, they barely get more than 3 moves a day and sometimes there can be 10 hours between movements.

How many staff are required and where on earth would they be drawn from ?

It'll be the guys bulk loading the European A.340-600's on a daily basis.

Bournemouth do there own handling now for everything and not reliant on Swissport like other UK airports
Obviously there terms and conditions make them very flexible to do all of this

Local staff, zero hours?
There's a based fleet of A340-600 been doing preighter work for about 18 months now on routes to China and such.

Indeed but the flights to BOU are to say the least, adhoc with hours and sometimes even days between movements.

But the labour to service said freight seems to miraculously appear when needed, Bournemouth it seems can produce rabbits from a hat when so required !

Whilst I'm absolutely appreciative of the comments made re staff problems at Manchester, I'm slightly perplexed that an airport in Dorset which is perhaps more famous for it's propensity of care homes and one time resident Max Bygraves, is able to summon up assets albeit on zero hours contracts at rapid notice, whilst Manchester, at the beating heart of the industrial North and the epicentre of the Northern supply chain, with access to a regional talent pool perhaps 50x greater than Bournemouth appears moribund.

I'll be honest given the dire straits of the industry I would see this as an opportunity rather than a hindrance.

I would take a contrary view and say MAN should grasp every opportunity and every lifeline it can possibly get given the absolute dire financial circumstances we find ourselves in.

Another question, would our incumbent CEO Ms Smart even be aware of this development or is this strictly a negotiation between handler and airline. Are we suggesting that MAG MAN has effectively been bypassed and is totally unaware of this approach with no right of redress?

On that basis the fortunes of the airport are effectively governed by the effectivness of the handler. Is that not the case of the tale wagging a very big dog ?

The BOH operation isn't really adhoc, there is a daily service to New York & a daily service to China using the A340s that are bulk un/loaded. So, a pretty firm schedule, along with other adhoc A340 cargo flights.
In addition there is a a based TUI B738 & regular2-3 Ryanair services a day.
MAN is struggling to handle the reduced passenger loads let alone add in any kind of cargo operation.