ManchesterBAFlyer

For a time Manchester airport was absolutely the bees knees. The security was quick and efficient, the shops were great both land and airside and the airport, while never a hub, was served by a large number of scheduled airlines offering quality service to all over the world.

Now the airport is a shadow of its former self. Since BA turned into London airways and handed the routes over to flybe, the airport seems to be nothing more than a badly managed low cost charter holiday base - Monarch, Jet2 and MyTravel. It also always seems to resemble a building site. The remaining scheduled flights are badly planned - woe betide anyone trying to get the morning KLM flight to Amsterdam - you'll be stuck for an hour behind the mass of people boarding the PIA flight - a 747 where large majority of passengers have too much hand luggage, liquids etc and take forever to get through.

The former European cities served by BA can now only be reached through connecting through other airports, or by using Flybe - which has none of the benefits of being part of an airline alliance and is essentially a low cost operator constantly affected by delays.

The airport is not small - it has 2 runways and 3 terminals, is well situated in close reach of affluent Cheshire and the UK's second city and has excellent transport links. What's going on? BMI has pulled out from its longhaul routes, BA just withdrew its JFK service and not one airline offers First class from the airport. I don't understand why this excellent airport is being allowed to go to waste and why no major airline has had the guts to invest in it as an alternative hub to the overcrowded mess that is Heathrow. Forget the current credit crunch - MAN has been going downhill for the past 2 years.

Ocn Vw 1K

Please follow the thread as it moves to our Travel U.K./Ireland forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Swanhunter

I think the answer to question about investing is proven by BD's experience. There is reasonable demand there in the good times, but not when things are a little tighter. LHR - by contrast - has a strong bedrock of demand through thick and thin. Plus strong connections globally that also ensure transit traffic to help fill planes.

I quite like MAN, but I wouldn't describe it as excellent. Three terminals is a pain and the airside transit facilities are a joke (sit and shiver in a unheated room for 10mins after having to phone someone to come and pick you up in a van). If you want to see what a really good mid-sized airport looks like, try MUC or HEL. Class acts.

MAN Pax

I'm not going to be an apologist for MAN, as there are many things that still bug me about the place - lifts out of action for years, non moving walkways and continual building work, for example.

However, I do believe that the place has improved. The new security areas, thanks to the building works, are excellent. They put LHR to shame, as does the attitude of the MAN screeners. We also seem to be missing the yellow jacketed numpties.

When all the building work is complete, there will be a pleasant airside environment in T1 + T2. T3 I think will always be poor in comparision, due to space issues. I believe the master plane is to put LCCs in T3, charters in T1 and scheduled in T2.

As for flights, it's down to economics. Unfortunately MAN doesn't pay - or the people of MAN don't pay! Cheshire is number 11 in the list of richest counties, and whilst we might have a 737 full of rich footballers, they won't be filling F cabins every day of the week. Unfortunately, the south east still retains the majority of the wealth, business and corporate HQs that keep the top cabins full. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6901147.stm MAN has to rely mainly on leisure travellers to get by.

BA weren't able to make their routes pay out of MAN. Flymaybe seem to be surviving, though with a different cost model and a move to cheaper a/c. (Gone are the 146s). BD only based here whilst waiting for slots at LHR and needed to utilise the hastily ordered A330s - their routes, with the exception of ORD, were marginal. ORD wasn't worth keeping a base here for - more money can be made sending the same a/c to CAI twice a day, rather than once to ORD.

Me - I'm happy I can use LH and AF to get me where I want to go, avoiding LHR. I have been known to use EK in extremis. I think this situation will be around for a long time - there isn't the volume of A&D traffic from MAN and it needs transfer pax to support a route - unless the costs are very, very low. It will be interesting to see how Easyjet performs in the next few years - I may even use them - flying out LPL and standing on a freezing set of stairs waiting for an a/c to arrive is not my idea of a good boarding experience.

graraps

I always find T2 to be a great experience. If you're concerned about having to wait behind PIA pax, just make sure to show your shiny plastic at check-in and ask for a fastrack stamp that should help you bypass them.

The rest of the terminals I can't help you with- I'd much rather spend half a day getting to where I'm going and get a few miles for my trouble than flyMAYbe or connect through LHR.

ajax

I flew out of MAN T2 the other night and found it quite nice, actually.

The security was FAR more advanced than LHR T5, the personnel were nicer, it was much better organised and altogether a better experience - including an automated BP check. How very Eurostar.

The only thing I found a bit weird was that you had to walk all over the place, down these teeny little corridors and around hairpin bends in order to get to the security checkpoint. I can imagine this would become quite difficult if there are 500 people in front of you.

IMHO, this type of prejudice is inappropriate and in poor form.

RichardInSF

I took the two comments about the PIA flight passengers as coments about infrequent flyers, not as statements about their nationality. Infrequent flyers really do typically take a lot longer at a security checkpoint, or hadn't you noticed?

Now if you feel that prejudice against infrequent flyers is inappropriate and in poor form, you shouldn't expect to find much company here as this is predominately a frequent flyer website!

David-A

I assume you mean "not as statements about passengers of a given airline/flight" rather than about their nationality?!?

I wouldn't agree with that for a second either! You get realistic and sensible frequent flyers who have a level of understanding (not least that they make up only a small part of the world). But sadly you also get those who hold prejudices against people who (might well choose) to travel less frequently than they do! I'm pleased to say FT has plenty of the sensible and realistic ones to balance out the nutters....

number_6

Back to the original question, why is MAN going downhill so fast; does the UK really not support having a 2nd major airport (when the US has at least 20 comparable)? I've been through MAN quite often (dozens of times) and have even chosen at times to fly into MAN instead of LHR when going to London (taking the train down). I've noticed lots of problems and quirks at MAN (very frustrating airport, some trivial problems stay broken for years). I have it on reliable info that this was why BA pulled out of MAN when it could (to dump the labour problems, and not due to unprofitable flights). Charters always dominated at MAN, but now it is nothing but charters and LCC. Token service for the rest. Pretty deadly for the airport in the long run. MAN has tried quite hard to attract premium business (get CX back, for example) but the premium pax traffic simply does not exist for most carriers. Even savvy airlines, like AA, misjudged this (e.g. their MAN-MIA flight had less than half the expected revenue). And that was for a well allianced established airline. For MAN to be an alternative hub to LHR, it has to have a critical mass of flights -- and that is impossible for a single airline to pull off (even BA could not do it). But someone like LH could come in and create a UK hub, if they wanted to have a UK hub, and that would work. MAN is not a bad augment to FRA as a hub, actually (but it looks like LH prefers CPH).

graraps

What prejudice? Have you ever been to T2?
There's Emirates, QR and PK (wiki says there's also SQ, but I've never seen them there), some oddball Virgin flights, maybe a Last Resort 757 charter in the summer, and everything else is a 737/320 if not a regional jet.
The sheer amount of people on the EK/QR/PK flights plus the VFR-heavy nature that means people are travelling in large family groups and/or with babies/children mean that, prior to the departure of these flights, the normally peaceful and pleasant terminal becomes a bit of a scrum. Unless you've got IRIS, returning behind these flights is even worse. This presents a problem for the airport authorities, but the tiny amount of widebody flights doesn't really justify the substantial extra investment required to get rid of the bottlenecks (though I have read that some expansion is planned).

Would you rather be stuck at the end of the queue behind the passengers of a KLM/Adria Airways F70 or a PIA/Emirates/Qatar 777?

nickyboy

I understand grarap's point. T2 just isn't set up to process widebody-quantity pax so when they come in (eg PK) there is always a real pain in processing such a large number of people in a short time.

But the main issue is the pull-out of long haul carriers. I'm not bothered personally as I always go to Far East and there were never direct flights so I always have to connect. However, if you go onto the BA forum there has been a lively discussion re, for example, BA pulling out of the MAN-JFK route. It seems that there was just insufficient premium traffic to justify it. That is BA's explanation, nothing to do with the airport's infrastructure.

You can understand this when looking at some of the dynamics of Manchester v London for example. F class demand might have a loose correlation to demand for 5* hotels and high class restaurants. Manchester has one 5* hotel and NO michelin starred restaurants. Plenty of folk have tried to make a go of high-end restaurants in Manchester and have failed (Juniper in Altrincham being the obvious exception). There aren't enough corporate headquarters to generate the J class demand. Manchester doesn't have critical mass so we had better get used to it being a LCC/charter/transfer-to-hub airport.

nickyboy

Jenbel

Actually, CX used to operate from MAN.

And to use the Michelin comparison, EDI has at least 2-3 michelin starred restaurants, and yet relatively few long haul carriers, so I'm not sure if that is the answer. I would guess that MAN is just too close to LON for the majors to put a lot of time, money and effort into building up a route network from.

number_6

CX still operates from MAN -- you just have to be loaded by a forklift to fly CX. Cargo flights only, no self-loading cargo. CX tried pretty hard to resume pax flights to MAN but for a variety of reasons it did not happen. The cargo operation is quite lucrative, though. I suppose that fits in with the charter/LCC mission at MAN.

ajax

Ah, sorry. I just remember your rather strong feelings in another thread about the Pakistanis in your city and thought you expanded this to include all PIA passengers, too. Now that you've amended your explanation to include EK and QR passengers, that seems to make more sense.

Sure I have. Wasn't it obvious from the post? As a matter of fact, I flew from MAN on Friday night. On PIA. And it wasn't all that bad.

graraps

Fair play. As I said in that thread, the problems with local Pakistanis here are not because they're Pakistani per se; it's just a lawless sub-culture (but it is, of course, greatly aided by the fact that the criminals share ethnicity/religion/etc with those who would be best-placed to report them to the authorities!).
Moreover, I'm betting that a fair few EK and QR pax are Pakistani and/or have Pakistan as their final destination.