We just need to challenge the group-think that goes on about "fairness" and "deserving". Spend less time paying any attention to marketing fluff and pay attention to what the business does and why. Virgin don't have cash to splash, they need to focus laser like on survival and paying down the debt that's weighing them down. They have no recent history of consistent profitability and decent margins and are struggling now, in the good times where competitors are making hay. That said, a split hub strategy makes no sense, nor does a split London operation IMHO. We're never far from the next recession in aviation and if Virgin are still stuck under a debt mountain, we only need look at Thomas Cook to see what can happen. I agree it's a shame that MAN won't get a Clubhouse, but I can only assume the business case no longer stacks up.

Hatred, vendetta ?

Colourful language none of which was actually used.

You do have a habit of taking perfectly reasonable comments and anointing them with your own colourful language in order to create a false narrative of what was actually said originally.

No toxicity up here Skip we just want a more level playing field that isn't listing to 45 degrees.

No limousine service from home.
No first class seperate lounge.
Slightly higher fares for the "privilege" of using Manchester
A hotch potch frequency in some instances, eg 4 a week
Limited frequency per day
Limitations of destinations.

....if you don't strive to provide the same offer opportunity as that available from Heathrow you don't succeed.

Our network going East is perfectly acceptable, West less so.

The same applies to freight.

No subsidies but a little bit of of levelling up with the same offer as LHR comes to mind, even IF it's on the margins.

I'm not expecting 126 flights a day to the USA but a bit more than the current meagre offering would be nice.

....And a mention in the PR that demonstrates we are actually STILL a part of the Virgin family would be nice would it not?

The point that S1E is making is that for commercial organisations, this will only happen if they can make better returns from MAN than they can elsewhere

Virgin Atlantic flies to over 30 destinations and has a Clubhouse at precisely five of them. It's got several flights a day through Orlando, through India with shared lounges - exactly as it has at Manchester. If Manchester is a poor relation, then it's in good company alongside Orlando and Delhi and 25 other Virgin destinations worldwide, but I don't see forums here moaning about those.

Manchester has got no god-given right to multiple destinations and frequencies by Virgin Atlantic - it will do what it wants, when it wants, and what it believes will be profitable. This "levelling up" stuff is just nonsense. And if they don't take up the huge opportunity at Manchester that others foresee, then it will be Virgin's loss if Aer Lingus UK expands or United, American, BA, Norse or whomever else comes charging in on a white horse to correct this perceived inequality. The fact that none of them have rather suggests that others take a similar view of the market potential at Manchester as that which Virgin itself has reached. They can't all be wrong.

Because Delhi, Orlando and the 25 other destinations are outstations. Virgin doesn't call them 'our home in Florida ... our home in India'...

Virgin talk the talk , NO WONDER people choose to go to LHR, when for the same price they can go to the Clubhouse !

Up to 5 daily flights on some days, that’s a decent amount as well as 7 daily KLM, 4 daily AF, and multiple dailies by SAS whose passengers could also make use of the lounge - more than enough

Ignoring the sentiments that have played a part in your post, the idea that MAN shouldn’t come to expect a clubhouse is ridiculous.

Promised since 2019 - 5 years on, we are well within our rights to complain about its non appearance

Indeed, some people have amnesia or jump in without a forensic knowledge of the subject.

“In order to provide an unrivalled travel experience, Virgin Atlantic will bring its iconic Clubhouse lounge to Manchester for the first time from Spring 2020. Upper Class customers and Gold Card members can take advantage of the exclusive space before their flight, which will include a la carte dining and a full service bar, quiet working spaces and a spa, allowing passengers to relax and rejuvenate before they depart.”

Most would argue the landscape now is the same as it was pre covid ?

My original sentiment however was more about the gushing PR puff piece that focused on expansion in 2024. Manchester is a part of that last time I checked but was omitted from the piece above !

This is the point that is being made - it's not about what has been 'promised' or what MAN 'deserves'. How much would Virgin have to spend on a clubhouse and how much extra income would it generate? Virgin lost £139m last year

HELP ON ARRIVAL MANCHESTER?

I arrive in Manchester tomorrow morning from Nairobi via Paris. I have 5 pieces of hold luggage each weighing 32Kg plus carry on, plus wife and a small child in a buggy. On departure from Nairobi we were able to arrange assistance from car park to gate at a modest cost, but I have not been able to find any similar service in Manchester. I don't know how I will manhandle all that stuff through customs and out to the car park where we are being met by a taxi. Is there any way I can get assistance?


Thanks!

https://royalairportconcierge.com/Airport/man/

https://fastrackvip.com/airports/manchester/

I called both, they say meet and greet has been suspended in MAN for the last 2 years! Any other ideas?

prem air arrivals service is closed https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/premiair/

i sugest you phone the airport or use chat on their website and ask what's available (if anything)

the handling agents listed on the website below may have a solution if you call them. details below

https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/...ggage-reclaim/

there's also some links to accessibility info if that is applicable

The landscape for Virgin in Manchester certainly isn't the same as it was pre-Covid. US West Coast gone. India expansion plans gone. Vegas only now being restored as a summer route. No Delta Boston.

If you have fewer passengers at an airport, you have less need for a huge investment in a Clubhouse. It's business common sense, even though you seem to be expected to to park that outside the door upon entry to this particular PPruNe thread.

And just to add, JFK has a Clubhouse (as do Washington Dulles, Johannesburg and San Francisco) even though they are not bases. If I recall correctly what I once heard, the economics of at least two of those depend on other airlines using the Virgin Atlantic lounge to provide volume and thus revenue to support their operation.

Paying extra for the taxi driver to meet you in arrivals, rather than at the car park, would make it easier for you. Perhaps ask the handling agent at the arrival gate for their help - they (or the airport) sometimes have staff at Baggage Reclaim an. Remember you will also be charged for a trolley.

Minus 3 LAX, 3 BOS, and a couple of MCO frequencies, the VS operation in Summer 2024 will be exactly the same as in 2019.

I'm just gonna throw this out there as an outside observer of the world between 2019 and today. I dont profess to be an expert and have no insider knowledge of the comings and goings of the industry but do follow the news pieces, forums and any other general information that comes about to form my opinion and here it is....

2019 was a very different world to today. Indeed Thomas Cook was thriving (well the airline was anyway) as a Manchester based longhaul airline with plans for expansion. Virgin wanted in on this too and also made great plans with promises of a Club House because they could see a that with extra flights the critical mass would be there to make such a venture possible. Back in 2019 the market going West was there. Sure the Dollar wasn't as it was a few years before but visits to the USA were affordable and profitable.

Then in September 2019 Thomas Cook was sadly taken from us by the collapse of the parent company (caused by bad financial decisions eventually catching up but that's another story). Virgin saw this as an opportunity and doubled down with the promise of extra flights. They just needed the aircraft...

But then in March 2020 (earlier for some countries), the world changed with COVID and national lockdowns. Everything changed. EVERYTHING. The way we work, the way we shop, the way we travel.

Fast forward to today, five years after 2019 and indeed there are signs that Manchester has recovered in passenger numbers to what they were in 2019. But the passengers aren't travelling to the USA in great numbers anymore. It's too expensive. People want more for their money and they are finding it in other places that the USA.

Maybe that's why the US carriers haven't come back? Manchester has always been an out bound market to the USA. But that market has shrunk now. That's fact.

The biggest market for Virgin has always been the USA. They were set up by Branson to compete with BA on transatlantic and the odd service elsewhere that could make a few quid. In 2019 that odd service was Manchester mainly going west with the odd India service thrown in.

But the reality I see now in 2024, is that Manchester has become even more leisure orientated than it was in 2019 and those passengers are more price sensitive, even taking into account frequent fliers, than the previous clientle.

Virgin are heavily in debt and as a business they should do everything they can to pay down that debt before embarking on what is (in my opinion) a massive risky investment in a Clubhouse at Manchester for a few premium passengers. Perhaps that's the reality and that promise has to be broken.....

So, why do we all think they're not building a Clubhouse at MAN after all? I suggested that the Finance Team working with the CEO had decided that the numbers didn't stack up given the financial position that the airline remains trapped in. I think the guys with access to the numbers have some very tough decisions to make. So, if you're right, and they should spend a few million quid on a lounge and then charge their partners to use it, if it's THAT easy, what's your explanation as to why they're not doing so? That was why I jokingly suggested "they just hate the North", that's plainly ridiculous, they do not. They seem to do well out of MAN. There's a lot of sentiment on here around "fairness" and "deserving" which in is a classically Northern sentiment, (not a criticism), but it will kill you stone dead in business if you're not careful. Aircraft are THE most mobile off assets and have to be deployed where they get the most bang for their buck.

Just wait until JetBlue arrive. Then will see. The JFK route will be let's say; hotly contested.

Unless I'm reading the numbers wrong, according to ACL, Virgin's seat capacity this summer at Manchester is 605,262. Summer 2019 they had 817,572. So they're still 25% down on their offering 5 years ago.

Perhaps Virgin would be better advised to negotiate a link up with PREMIAIR at Manchester Airport. That should certainly tick the box for a premium pre-flight experience. It should be possible to agree a price point with MAG at which it could be included in the 'Upper Class' tariff, offsetting the limos and Clubhouses included in the ticket price at other larger stations. No new build is needed for this. No direct investment from Virgin. The dedicated Premiair terminal is there awaiting use.

They were still operating the 747s with the small Upper Class cabins then? Quite a big capacity difference compared to the A330s, I think?

Yeah, fair point - movements aren't as down as much as seat capacity.

MAN gets the A350-1000's as well, though the "beachfleet" ones in the leisure-heavy configuration.

Two A350-1000 a day at present at least some days

The thing is, us Northerners are canny, we know value for money and we can smell a rip off. I recently flew to Australia and back on SQ out of MAN. Great flights and on-board service. I looked at Premium Economy but it was twice the price of Y class. I didn't even bother looking at Business. Even on a long trip like mine the extra I would pay for the marginal benefit of a premium seat would buy me not just a lot of beer, but another whole holiday. Who in their right mind is going to do that? Airline X may lose out on my bum in their pointy end big seat, but airline Y gets my bum as well, on another flight. So everyone's a winner. Let the southerners pay lots more for their seats, I'll drink their health with a beer on the money I've saved. Savvy Northerners don't need a Clubhouse. There's Wetherspoons!

But not eveyone has to pay for their own ticket. Quite often it's their employer. Even in the North.

Yes we can be quite canny like you say, but taking the Singapore example, I was looking at flights next year to Houston to join up with a cruise from Galveston. Most 1 stop flights I was looking at around £600ish in economy. And then I found Singapore were selling premium economy for £1000 return.

Sure it's £400 more but to me, as the flight is part of the holiday and I'm able to adjust my budget to pay this extra then yes I will go premium. Not all Northerners like to save money this way, some of us like to splash out our hard earned cash on little luxuries....

Indeed, however a combination of the post Covid realisation that with Teams and Zoom many meetings can be conducted without the need for an air ticket and the almost obligatory corporate "net zero" policies mean the amount of ɓusiness travel is down and likely won't recover to pre-covid level. As technology develops it may indeed decline further.

Yes, my previous post was a little tongue in cheek but not altogether untrue. Northerners are more likely to be paying for their own air tickets, the funding being more a result of self-employment and entrepreneurialism than government and corporate travel accounts. You only have to take a drive around places like the commuter towns of Cheshire, bordering Manchester and Liverpool, plus parts of those city centres now, to see that there is no shortage of wealth in areas of the North. The people who drive the flashy cars through Alderley Edge will be sitting in the pointy end of aeroplanes, no doubt. I would venture to say that premium travellers being mainly business travellers is no longer true. I think they are just as likely to be baby-boomer leisure travellers with big pensions and property wealth, taking those dream trips abroad. Certainly that was the view of the Emirates staff in MAN a few years back when I was working there.

I’m quite often on EK and Singapore out of Manchester and Business cabin is still full generally, and I have noticed it filling up post Covid.

Teams / Zoom I find are ok for pretty general discussion but more important stuff definitely needs a visit in person we find. As for who my fellow passengers are I would say a mixture of business and high end holidays traffic and indeed there has been the inevitable football players and families occasionally though the only ones I remember was Ferdinand who had family with him and Nanny, who was excellent,

Cheers
Mr Mac

I stand to be corrected, but they are not all being replaced. Some have been removed completely and only a handful are being replaced. On the plus side, they have fixed the escalators to/from the Metrolink in the station, these have been out of service for about a year.

I know we always want more, but I have to say after the fiasco of the last couple of years, since the changes at leadership level with Ken o’toole and Chris Woodroofe taking up new roles, things seem to be actually getting done at MAN. Yes they could be getting done better or quicker, but at least they’re getting done.

We’re also getting some freight back which is great, and I’m sure more new routes and airlines will follow over the coming months both PAX and freight. I’m just curious to see what the next steps are after pier 2 is built. T1 mothballed yes, and a lot of remote parking and bussing is inevitable but I can’t believe that pier 2 will be the end of the airside redevelopment. I just hope this positive momentum leads to further improvements and opportunity!

You are correct in that the current travelator’s between the station and T2 will be replaced between now and summer 2025.
As the skylink will close next year between T1 and the station, obviously these won’t be replaced.

Concerning the station itself, I’m not sure who is responsible but I know it’s not the airport.
For the metrolink side of the station maybe it’s TfGM…?

Roverman.
Drinking at Spoons isn't savvy, it's self abuse! 😁

It the airport responsibility, they own the site - it is partially managed by TfGM but they have been clear that MAG is responsible for the infrastructure of the bus side of the station. Not sure of the railways side, I'd guess a combo of Network rail & MAG.

the train station part is operated by Transpennine Express. It's probably not an ideal setup with different people operating different parts.

what will the pedestrian route from the station to T3 be ?

Good question. Where does this rumour that the T1 skyline is closing come from?

How will you get from the station to the terminals?

Heyy Everyone! I’ve heard rumblings we might be seeing a Beluga coming in? Anyone know owt? 👍🏻