So if you did work with the duplicated flight numbers providing x number of seats on a network, say transatlantic, surely you corroborated that against given passengers carried by the airlines? Agreed, it can’t be exact by city point but you would get a representative load factor for an airline or group of airlines which would show the numbers as tosh!

Need to do top down as well as bottom up to check the numbers.
And before that you’d surely spot the multiple arrivals and departures for a city pair at exactly the same times!

Market forces do cut both ways and if more airports/handling agents said no to Ryanairs business proposals Ryanair would have to start to pay more and charge more. Whilst there are still airports offering a cheaper alternative, Ryanair will take advantage and have the passengers travel further to that airport.

When I used to live in Manch, from Oldham or Rochdale, it was just as easy to get to Leeds. I guess now the M62 is much busier and the M60 runs direct to Manch Airport.

I wasn’t thinking of maintenance. Do Swissport do that?

Why do RYR park nose-in to the gate when they don’t use the airstairs? They could get rid of the pushback if they park at an angle. Do their aircraft have internal stairs or do they always use the handling agents? Is that more cost effective than flying around with two sets of steps?

Depends where you want to go….my owned house’ nearest airport is Carcassonne and I work in London and live in Bedford so therefore if I want to get there I would fly Ryanair and if I can plan early enough it’s a good price and I think a decent service. As said above, the service is at a level with buses and trains so its a mass transit mode. Forget the idea that air travel is for the select few. Old hat, history!
Having said all that…I prefer to drive even though its 13 hours from Dunkerque, the cheapest crossing! The drive and country is very pleasant. The car parking and car hire at t’other end all add to the cost making the journey cost about equivalent. If I was on my own I might fly…with the kids I would drive and take a whole lot more luggage with me.

Can’t see it happening. Too many NIMBYs don’t want a fast rail line running through their area or destroying the countryside, the present rail system is more expensive than air travel so what will the cost for the passenger be of a brand new rail infrastructure? And this with a background of this and the next government wanting/needing to cut spending!

If memory serves me right the Andover is/was G-APZV, the prototype. Also, thinking back to the white bits around the radiation shed, these were present when I first started at Woodford in ’75 and the Victor XH670 was still reasonably complete then.

Maybe the Avro people just quietly got on with their work in redesigning dH’s poor airliner into a superb MR aircraft or demonstrating how modern quad-engined aircraft should be built?
It is the next factory airfield likely to be closed. Maybe then people will miss it though it is in leafy Cheshire and likely to be farmland in double quick time.

Mixed thoughts as it was my 2nd home for 11 years.

What was the Consul shipped through Manch airport in the 80s? To Singapore?