MAN should be 772 from June on the EK17 and will then be 773 on the EK17 from late October. The 3rd MAN service will not happen for the time being so we can be entertained by a 772 or 773 on the EK19 in a couple of years time, just before EK17 is further revised.

Seems to me MAN is the only regional that gets “squeezed” by EK as they openly admited in the local press a couple of years ago that lack of aircraft stopped them from upping frequency from daily to 2 daily despite incredibly healthy loads (over 90%!); currently loads are tending toward the 90% mark again.

Can this announcement be taken as a sign that they’re about to be outperformed by bmi at MAN with their non-stop service; I’m sure the prospective BWIA MAN passengers will be “delighted” with the rejigging of the services and so entertain the idea of bmi’s A330s instead.

I’m just surprised it’s taken than a long while to realise that using T2 will never help them minimise time on the ground, despite the best intentions of the pilots trying to break the speed limit whilst taxiing! In an “ideal” world, I’m sure they’d choose gates 12, 14 or 15 as the the gates to use at T1.

Seeing that EMB170 EI-DFJ operated the 1st AZ service to BHX on Sunday…..one wonders who to believe: the eyewitnesses of that aircraft or BHX/AZ themselves!

David

BHX is on the EMB170 (for the time being, perhaps to go to A319s in due course?). I sure when I first saw the schedule, it was planned for a daily MD82.

MAN’s MXP service has seen a big increase in passengeer numbers: Sept 2003 saw about 120 services with 8,000 passengers (roughly 67 pax per flight). Sept 2004 has seen an additional 12000 passengers on an additional 120 services and a few of the recent BA MAN-MXP services in the evenings have been operated by ERJ145s but not too sure if it was due to tech aircraft or low loads!

The Titans were operating for BACitiExpress – the 146 routed to/from Southampton in the evening (probably carrying two sets of passengers as I noticed that the early evening arrival was cancelled) and the ATR42 was on the evening Glasgow service – it didn’t park at the BA terminal on arrival tonight but on Pier B stand 12; don’t know what services either of them were doing earlier today though.

MANAIRPORTMAD, I wouldn’t be too surprised if a “large” aircraft appeared reguarly from April 2007 on a particular route.

David

MAN routes:

Domestic
Aberdeen, Belfast City, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Isle of Man, Jersey, LGW, LHR and Southampton

International
Amsterdam, Berlin, Bologna (for the next week!), Brussels, Copenhagen, Cork, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hanover, Lyon, Madrid, Milan, New York, Nice, Oslo, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Shannon, Stuttgart, Venice, Vienna and Zurich

JFK is run as a BACX route!

Additional types = 737 of Titan (but that appears to have gone to BA mainline) and ATR42 (Titan and Air Atlantique) as are currently no days when some part of the BACX fleet goes tech; most of the time, they use Titan and Flightline 146s to rescue the schedule.