David KerrMaybe they just count them…?
Some might be working for the handling agent of the airline concerned whilst other people could be breaking the law by listening in on various radio frequencies. However, I’ve got to admit that in the mid 1990s, at the quiet periods at MAN, I used to count the number of people going from gate to aircraft. Ahh, the bygone days of actually having a decent position to spot from the terminal areas.
David KerrAnd my mum did an Air UK Leisure Manchester to Orlando in a 767, which if remember correctly, was a converted freighter
That would a novelty as genereally freighters are not normally converted to passenger service….it’s usually the other way round. Pretty sure both of their 767s were new builds.
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Other AirUK route (rather KLMuk); Manchester-Milan around 1994 (tink it operated Nov 94-Mar95?) 12 weekly using FK100s.
David KerrI’ve looked at my log of that day and seen that I’ve recorded 847 movements in a 24 hour period (there’s probably quite a few I missed!) with only 305 different aircraft.
Unfortunately didn’t record arrival or departure times on all movments but the bare minimum movements are:
32 from 0000-0659
199 from 0700-1059
197 from 1100-1459
200 from 1500-1859
139 from 1900-2359
So it was a minimum of 50 per hour for 12 hours – I’ve only 80 movements without timings so it could be squeezed upwards to about 53 per hour if only 36 of the “timeless” ones occurred in the 12 hour period.
David KerrAs you will have seen in the thread on this board, MAN has seen dramatic increase both passenger and movement numbers over the past 20 to 30 years. A slight hiccup now and again is okay and not part of any significant trend.
Not too surprised about some of the short-haul – it was a bit strange for GB Airways to offer up a better service than BACitiExpress/BAConnect to leisure destinations so not surprise that most of the routes are suspended for the winter, and BACitiExpress board appeared to have left their brains outside the boardroom when deciding to realign itself as a low price carrier aiming for more leisure passengers, weeks after dropping the routes that plenty of scope for being successful in a new scheme of things.
The long-haul routes that have gone:
Malaysian – severe financial problems but I fully expect them back should they survive as MAN provided plenty of the passengers they now appear to be seeking.
BWIA – idiotic scheduling. If you were to offer 2 flights a week on a long-haul route, I doubt you’d schedule them to arrive consecutive days at the weekend! Better prospects if they had done Wed/Sun operations using 767/A330 but I believe they are not too keen on ETOP operations.
American to Miami – very marginal route of operating a 2 class stratefy. Whether it could be revived using wingletted 757s is open to conjecture – most of which could be surmised as MIA-MAN non-stop on 757s!?
Oh, route not really lost: Cathay’s inablity to operate to MAN is not of MAN’s making.
However, we’ve got 3 weekly Cape Town and weekly Toronto from flyglobespan starting November and the likelihood of them operating to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
David KerrR2 was designed to allow just slightly over 60 movements per hour, from memory.
It may have that theoretically maximum, but I’ve been at MAN a good decade or so ago when it was churning out 50 in an hour on a single runway on a theoretical max of 42 an hour. If push came to shove, I’ve no doubt 70 could be acheived.
David KerrSome earlier passenger throughput and movements (rounded):
1965: 1.4 million, 47000 mvmts
1975: 2.7 million, 68400 mvmts
1980: 4.4 million, 83300 mvmts
1985: 6.2 million, 95600 mvmts
1991: 10.8 million, 151600 mvmts
1994: 14.8 million, 168000 mvmts
1997: 16.1 million, 168300 mvmts
MAN also handicapped by lack of full-length parallel taxiway to 24L/06R which means that when 24L is in use for landing, aircraft have to go in the loop and wait for a break in traffic for them to backtrack down the runway.
I would imagine typical movement rates in peak periods are between 55 and 60 per hour, slowing to around 30 in single runway ops.
David KerrYou have proof of this do you? I would expect that if this has happened it’s because the partners see the business sense in such a move.
Strangely enough, all those airlines prior to BA’s “suggestions” once they decided to become “best buddies” would appear to have been quite okay with MAN ops. Just coincidence that they pull out as soon as they come to commericial agreements with BA? When CX pulled out, they admitted they were more interested in promoting the MAN-LHR-HKG sector through BA codeshares than their own MAN-HKG service!
BA deals with business issues including competition on a daily basis. It doesn’t ‘wet’ itself! .
So why do they cry like babies whenever a foreign airline wants to start a MAN service then? BA made a big point about charges not being “competitive” against other airports and MAN has certainly responded by cutting them and gaining another award. Do I see services being reinstated? No…just services being pulled.
Again based on the facts as they were at the time, and certainly prior to big changes in the Pakistan market that resulted in the route not only being suspended for some considerable time, but also being weakened for BA to the benefit of PIA who were able to keep operating.
I believe BA operated the MAN-ISB sector for at least a couple of years after T1BA was opened. Enough time for them to have introduced the 777 and perhaps enhance the bottom line, as well as increasing available capacity? It’s not as though demand collapsed….it’s almost as though they “willed” the route to die.
No I don’t. But I’m sure if BA ever sees a business case strong enough to do so, they will..
Oh, we’ve given up on BA up here forever. Let’s get other airlines operating here without being in BA’s pocket; i’m quite sure LH will enjoy trying to convert more business passengers going onto their long-haul product by repeating the ads which suggest there’s 1 airline in particular that has connecting passengers fly in economy prior to their onward journey unlike themselves who indicate that you can have all the mod cons from the off, and not just ex-MUC and FRA. LH have admitted to at least 10% of their MAN pax flying business class long-haul. I wonder just how many KL and AF fly. Pity BA seem to be quite unable find them when doing market research.
David KerrSeeing that is was orignally known as T1BA and was a joint venture between BA and MAN i.e. both parties chipped in with money, perhaps it was not unnatural for MAN to assume that BA would actually do something to make MAN a mini hub instead of squeezing all their partner airlines to drop MAN like a stone so that they can cart them down to LHR instead, and then wet themselves as soon as other airlines introduced competing services ex-MAN and LPL.
The supplement that was included in the Manchester Evening News would have gone out with the “blessing” of BA, but included outrageous lies about how committed they are and the basing of a 777 at MAN to operate 3 weekly MAN-ISB non-stop rather than the 3 weekly LGW-MAN-ISB service. Do YOU OneLeft recollect ANY scheduled BA 777 services out of MAN as I certainly don’t!
As for the GB routes- I’m reviewing the BA timetable currently and have found most of the “normal” timetable though the TFS service is showing a mix of A321s and A320s.
David KerrThat’s what I thought but the Amadeus reservation system is showing nothing for MAN-TIP non-stop until 18th June.
Timings: arrive 1310, departs on Thursdays at 1500 and on Sundays at 1415.
Type = A320
David KerrIf the A400M achieves commercial success many folks will be astonished, Airbus included given that it’s military aircraft.
As for a new 737 replacement stopping A320s sales, given the rather large number orders + backlog for the healthily profitable A320 (including plenty of new customers), I would suggest Airbus would be able to focus on both the A350 and a A320NG as the A380 starts to generate profits; remember that they are expecting just a single new customer for the A380 each year over the next few years so the breakeven figure may well be acheived within 5 to 7 years (dependent on what discounts, if any, are given).
David KerrI’m having déjà-vu now with this thread…
You may well be…but in the last year of seeing BA adverts for MAN-JFK, I have NEVER seen the phrase “operated by BACitiExpress” in the small print. Now if it’s always been the property of the “regional” arm (does this include the pre 767 days?), why didn’t they include that phrase?
David KerrWasnt it always a BA regional / CitiExpress route (now BACon) ? I dont really see what the problem is.
It’s always been a source of conjecture as to where the bottom line goes – yes it has been a BACX service but it also reverted back to BA mainline and now it’s seemingy back on a “regional” footing. Seeing that it is reputedly a million pound plus profit per year route, it could do wonders to enhance the prospect of BA Connect existing for more than 2 years. Although it could be a “tactical” change given the number of sub-contracted services that have taken place over the past 2 weeks that would have seen money flow out of the company!
David KerrIt’s new – hence my comments in the opening post!
David KerrDoes Lance not mean 777-312ERs? The exisiting flights operate quite full, so dropping the 2 one-stop 747s in favour of 2 non-stop 777s should increase MAN capacity by around 10%.
MH were attracting 8 to 10,000 passengers a month so there is still a biggish market for Thai to tap into, depsite this SQ enhancement and the planned EK introduction on 773s on EK19/20.
However……I wonder what would happen should the fuel prices stabilise and then reduce with regards to a return of MH, as I’m positive that if MH has 5 777s a week instead of 4 747s, it would probably have made their service less prone to “heavy” losses, with prices being squeezed upwards with a slight reduction in overall capacity
David KerrReturn “should” be around 1045 tomorrow morning (or, if you’re reading it before 1045 on 9th April, today).
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