Manchester (UK) Thread - 2019

User001 · Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:54 pm

Ryanair have announced a 2 weekly Poitiers flight from June 2nd. It’s the 9th route they are starting from MAN this summer.

xwb777 · Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:13 pm

Virgin Atlantic has operated a B747 charter flight from Manchester to Dubai.

kruiseri · Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:18 pm

I just learned the hard way, that MAN is poorly equipped to handle snow.

There was some light snowfall in the morning. Result, both runways closed, massive cancellations and delays. At the time of writing I’ve spent some 8 hours already in the lounge waiting for my flight...

User001 · Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:21 pm

Light snowfall? Did you actually look out of the window? I was also stuck at MAN this morning and that was no light dusting. Liverpool also closed for a time too so clearly not as mild as you make out.

Armchair experts, always think they could do better. Think people need to get a grip with reality sometimes.

kruiseri · Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:26 pm

User001 wrote:
Light snowfall? Did you actually look out of the window? I was also stuck at MAN this morning and that was no light dusting. Liverpool also closed for a time too so clearly not as mild as you make out.

Armchair experts, always think they could do better. Think people need to get a grip with reality sometimes.

Yes, I did lookout of the window. I even walked at the city as it happenned.

Where I am from (HEL) this type of weather would have been a non issue, just your typical winter Wednesday.

Scottiedog · Wed Jan 30, 2019 5:28 pm

That's one of the problems that the UK suffers from - not enough snow. All our commercial airfields have snow clearing equipment, some more than others, but they may not be of the standard of our Scandinavian friends. How much do you spend on equipment that might be used, on average, for 2 of 3 days? If you have regular snowfall then you not only can afford more plough etc, but you also have more experience of doing the clearing.

Just my thoughts.

azz767 · Wed Jan 30, 2019 5:29 pm

kruiseri wrote:
User001 wrote:
Light snowfall? Did you actually look out of the window? I was also stuck at MAN this morning and that was no light dusting. Liverpool also closed for a time too so clearly not as mild as you make out.

Armchair experts, always think they could do better. Think people need to get a grip with reality sometimes.

Yes, I did lookout of the window. I even walked at the city as it happenned.

Where I am from (HEL) this type of weather would have been a non issue, just your typical winter Wednesday.

Whilst I agree UK airports in general are under equipped for snow, it’s not exactly a typical winter Wednesday for the UK, the likelihood is that the snow clearing equipment won’t be needed 360 days of the year. I’m not saying improvements aren’t needed but it’s not really a fair comparison between MAN and HEL is it?

User001 · Wed Jan 30, 2019 5:57 pm

kruiseri wrote:
User001 wrote:
Light snowfall? Did you actually look out of the window? I was also stuck at MAN this morning and that was no light dusting. Liverpool also closed for a time too so clearly not as mild as you make out.

Armchair experts, always think they could do better. Think people need to get a grip with reality sometimes.

Yes, I did lookout of the window. I even walked at the city as it happenned.

Where I am from (HEL) this type of weather would have been a non issue, just your typical winter Wednesday.

We need to get out of this notion of comparing the U.K. with Scandinavian countries as an example of bad planning. The Scandinavian get a lot of snow, and it’s usually consistent snow (powdery for the best part, while the U.K. alternates from wet slushy stuff to powdery and everything in between).

The U.K. doesn’t get the same levels of snow as Scandics, thus, it’s not worth the investment in snow clearing abilities like the Scandics can do. In the U.K., heavy snow clearing machinery gets used probably 10-15 days per year max, the Scandics is probably 10 times that, thus, a good ROI.

So, the comparisons are null and void really.

When you saw how much snow there was this morning, on top of an icy layer from the previous night, MAN did well to clear as fast as it did. Like I say, very easy to judge from an armchair when your not the ones with the decisions resting on your head...l

David_itl · Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:55 pm

Ah the great underprepared MAN bashing has started. These are the METARs from when I went to bed to when I arrived at work

23:50:00 AUTO 22003KT 9999 BKN032 M01/M03 Q0993 TEMPO SHRASN BKN008
00:20:00 AUTO VRB03KT 9999 FEW032 SCT044 M01/M02 Q0993 TEMPO SHRASN BKN008
00:50:00 AUTO 24006KT 0550 -SN SCT007 BKN017 BKN025 00/M01 Q0994 TEMPO 4000 SHRASN BKN007
01:20:00 24006KT 3500 R23R/1300 -SN SCT005 BKN009 BKN013 00/M01 Q0994
01:50:00 24005KT 9999 -RASN BKN017 BKN030 BKN046 00/M01 Q0993 TEMPO 3000 -RASN BKN008
02:20:00 AUTO 26005KT 4200 -RASN BKN008 OVC033 00/M01 Q0993 TEMPO 1400 SHRASN BKN010
02:50:00 AUTO 24006KT 4900 -SN BKN005 00/M01 Q0993
03:20:00 AUTO 24009KT 1300 -SN SCT004 BKN014 00/M01 Q0993 RERA TEMPO 3000 SHRASN BKN008
03:50:00 AUTO 23008KT 9999 SCT021 BKN043 00/M01 Q0993 TEMPO 2000 SHRASN BKN008
04:20:00 AUTO 22006KT 9999 SCT005/// BKN027/// //////TCU M01/M02 Q0993 TEMPO 2000 SHRASN BKN008
04:50:00 AUTO 21004KT 9999 BKN027 M01/M02 Q0993 TEMPO 4000 SHRASN BKN008
05:20:00 AUTO VRB03KT 9999 SCT015/// BKN024/// BKN033/// //////TCU M01/M02 Q0993 TEMPO 2000 SHRASN BKN008
05:50:00 18004KT 150V220 3500 SN BKN008TCU M01/M02 Q0993
06:20:00 VRB02KT 1200 SN FEW004 BKN006 M01/M02 Q0993 RESN R23R/690195 R23R/690195 TEMPO 6000 NSW BKN010
06:50:00 VRB02KT 0700 R23R/0600 +SN BKN003 M01/M02 Q0993 RESN R/SNOCLO TEMPO 2000 SHSN BKN008
07:20:00 VRB02KT 0500 R23R/1200 SN BKN004 M01/M02 Q0993 RESN R/SNOCLO BECMG 6000 NSW SCT020
07:50:00 19004KT 4800 -SN FEW007 BKN047 M01/M02 Q0993 RESN R/SNOCLO
08:20:00 20004KT 150V230 1400 BR BKN003 M01/M02 Q0994 R/SNOCLO
08:50:00 9003KT 0600 R23R/P1500 FG OVC002 M01/M02 Q0994 R/SNOCLO
09:20:00 VRB03KT 0900 R23R/P1500 FZFG OVC002 M01/M02 Q0994 R/SNOCLO

I would suggest that what MAN experienced was not your "typical" English snowy weather i.e. a light dusting., Maybe an aviation professional could confirm what the Tempo notes in the large emboldened snow notes mean as to my untrained eye, what occurred was much more severe than what was forecast/expected? I have no idea of the depth of snow recorded at the airport but where I live,5 miles or so away),, I had to walk through 8cm to 10cm of snow. The last time there was snow to that depth was last April and to be honest I doubt there's been more than 10 occasions in the last 10 years when this much snow has happened

alric8 · Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:06 pm

I swear if I hear people from places with more extreme climates complain about British response to extreme heat or snow one more time...

In Scandinavia it gets properly snowy every single winter, so investing a lot in equipment and training to allow running in the snow is absolutely vital. But in the UK the money could be much, much better spent. Because we are an island, extreme temperatures of any kind is rare. The efforts to allow Scandinavian countries to run in the cold, snowy winter months are not simple or cheap, and one snowy day is not a worthwhile return on all that effort.

Turnhouse1 · Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:25 pm

While snow isn't that common in the UK, our airports are incredibly badly prepared for what was <5cm of snow. Heathrow is understandably bad as simply closing the runway long enough to treat it means flights have to be cancelled. But better processes both for treating runways and aprons, and deicing really should be achievable.

The snow today is entirely normal for the north of the UK, I'm not saying it happens for 3 months of the year every year, but it happens a couple of times per year to the extent that an airport, like a highway authority, should have a plan to deal with it.

emiratesdriver · Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:45 pm

It’s quite simple, MAG don’t view 1 or 2 days significant disruption per year as worthy of investing in equipment and training capable of managing the snow event that happened earlier today.
If there was a plan that was in place it was most certainly inadequate and deliberately optimistic given the “value engineering” that is prevalent throughout UK airport operations.
Nothing will change, and the UK has never been Scandinavia, except of course when the Vikings were in town.

eisenbach · Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:45 pm

David_itl wrote:
Maybe an aviation professional could confirm what the Tempo notes in the large emboldened snow notes mean as to my untrained eye, what occurred was much more severe than what was forecast/expected?

TEMPO means, temporary.

Examples:
-SN (light snow); temporary SHRASN (moderate shower of snow and rain (sleet))
SN (moderate snow); temporary NSW (no significant weather)

This has nothing to do with the forecast or forecast quality, as a METAR is just an observation.
Using TEMPO for METARS is generally not very common in Central Europe (where I work as a MET), but you might use it, in order to give indication what happened since the last observations beside of the prevailing weather at the time of observation.

User001 · Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:16 am

Turnhouse1 wrote:

The snow today is entirely normal for the north of the UK, I'm not saying it happens for 3 months of the year every year, but it happens a couple of times per year to the extent that an airport, like a highway authority, should have a plan to deal with it.

It may be normal on much higher ground and further north than MAN, but levels of snow like yesterday certainly aren't the 'norm' for MAN. They used to be, years ago, but not these days.

Boeing74741R · Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:41 am

User001 wrote:
Light snowfall? Did you actually look out of the window? I was also stuck at MAN this morning and that was no light dusting. Liverpool also closed for a time too so clearly not as mild as you make out.

Armchair experts, always think they could do better. Think people need to get a grip with reality sometimes.

Indeed. There's also the fact that passengers, airport staff (inc. terminal and ground) and crew would have struggled to get to the airport too. Being closed would have been a relief for passengers panicking about missing their flight in these conditions.

Mullion · Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:56 am

The snow we had yesterday was worse than 2018 "Beast from the East". When it snows in this area it tends to be a wet snow from West and clears very quickly or if it`s the East it most is dumped on Pennines and we get a dusting but yesterday it was clear and cold and the wether moved in
and snowed on frozen ground and very hard about 06.30 when I woke up

kruiseri · Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:57 pm

I am not suggesting that European airports like MAN should be prepared to handle a blizzard that lasts several days like we do in the Nordics.

However, yesterday was only modest snowfall, it lasted about two hours, during which time it dumped perhaps 5 cm of snow and it was predicted days in advance. Even that was all over by 8 am. If you have the right gear and perhaps more importantly the right ”snowhow”, there would have been no reason to close the airport for 5 hours.

User001 · Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:44 pm

Well that's just your opinion isn't it?
Also misses the point with your right gear line, as its already been said that to have the right gear requires a huge investment (those machines are not cheap as well as the training on those machines. For 5 days of decent snow it's just not worth it. This isn't HEL/ARN/OSL or even the east coast USA which has much more snow.

Mullion · Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:04 pm

User001 I agree snow gear last used last spring which was probably second time that winter and probably won`t be used again this winter
as this band of snow will not reach us as usual because the gulf stream keeps us warm

kruiseri · Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:25 pm

[threeid][/threeid]

Mullion wrote:
User001 I agree snow gear last used last spring which was probably second time that winter and probably won`t be used again this winter
as this band of snow will not reach us as usual because the gulf stream keeps us warm

Hope you are right. Meanwhile it might still make sense to study if things could be done better with the already existing gear. I still find it hard to believe that you really need to close a runway for 5+ hours because of yesterdays weather. It even took them 3+ hours to clear the runway after the snowfall had already ended.

User001 · Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:52 pm

The runways wasn’t closed for 5+ hours. The last departure was at 0605 (easy to Faro) and the first departure at 1031 (Ryanair IIRC). It also didn’t take 3 hours to clear the runways once the snow had stopped either. Snowfall stopped approx 0900-0930 and runway opened one hour later.

Seems your views on all of this are a little distorted and your ‘facts’ do not represent reality as your timings are all way off. I’ll leave it there as clearly your mind is made up on the inefficiencies despite the fact you have your timings all wrong, maybe you should apply for the top job of snow clearance at MAN, you could clearly do it better so go for it.

kruiseri · Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:00 pm

I stand corrected on the times. I was quoting what they told as at the lounge.

Of course I am in no position to say how MAN should or should not prepare for snowfall. If the main customers (=local residents and airlines) accept that level of service, then fine.

Mullion · Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:03 am

As I predicted nothing arrived except a dusting from a shower from Yorkshire side of Pennines

User001 · Fri Feb 01, 2019 10:26 am

kruiseri wrote:
I stand corrected on the times. I was quoting what they told as at the lounge.

Of course I am in no position to say how MAN should or should not prepare for snowfall. If the main customers (=local residents and airlines) accept that level of service, then fine.

Well, you tell me honestly now. Rather than the comment of ‘if your happy with poor levels of service, then fine’, If you were the CEO of the airport, responsible for budgets and everything else, what would you do?

Would you

A) spend millions, upon millions of pounds in new snow equipment, training, de-icing rigs, extra staff and everything else needed (which means other budgets have to be cut to accommodate as you are a business without unlimited budgets and need to invest/make profits etc). Remember, MAN sees this type of snowfall probably 5 days out of 365 overall so that money tied up in all of that’s would lie redundant for up to 360 days a year.

B) keep what you have and just suck it up that those 5 days a year things are not going to move as quickly as you’d like, have the odd closure and work at trying to keep the other 360 days smoothly. Remember, that even the best snow clearing airports do have to close occasionally, so, they are not all perfect either.

So, it’s a Genuine question, what would you do if you were in the hot seat with a limited budget in front of you? Like I say, it’s a very different prospect when your sat in a lounge, tutting and muttering that ‘this is ridiculous’, to being the one who has to make those decisions and stand by them. Very different indeed.

David_itl · Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:54 pm

Away from the snow, a daily LDY-MAN expected to be announced. Route previousky done by Loganair (Sh360 and J31) and Aer Arran (Atr42). https://www.derryjournal.com/news/new-derry-to-manchester-route-will-be-daily-service-1-8793288

User001 · Sat Feb 02, 2019 2:46 pm

Also in the news.

-Lufthansa to increase MUC-MAN to 4 daily.
https://twitter.com/airportrumours/stat ... 26368?s=21

-BA increase their corporate shuttle between MAN/CBG/GOT to 4 weekly
-Easyjet expected to announce up to 7 new routes in the next 2 weeks.

digitalcloud · Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:12 pm

AA 787 service delayed until Jan 2020, continues to be 763 until then.

digitalcloud · Sat Feb 09, 2019 11:57 am

From Airlineroute:

UNITED's planned Newark – Manchester service is now scheduled with Boeing 767 for entire summer 2019 season. Previously planned 757 service from 29APR19 to 21MAY19 switched to 767-300ER (-400ER from 31MAR19 to 28APR19 and from 22MAY19 to 26OCT19)

DobboDobbo · Sat Feb 09, 2019 2:05 pm

digitalcloud wrote:
From Airlineroute:

UNITED's planned Newark – Manchester service is now scheduled with Boeing 767 for entire summer 2019 season. Previously planned 757 service from 29APR19 to 21MAY19 switched to 767-300ER (-400ER from 31MAR19 to 28APR19 and from 22MAY19 to 26OCT19)

This is encouraging, and with a fair wind it can be hoped that the B763 will continue on EWR-MAN after 26 October 2019.

Mullion · Sun Feb 10, 2019 11:32 am

I think it will be as B763 don`t have that much difference in seat numbers just more J class which I am told is doing well

digitalcloud · Sun Feb 10, 2019 11:53 am

Mullion wrote:
I think it will be as B763 don`t have that much difference in seat numbers just more J class which I am told is doing well

Difference of 45 seats, still fairly significant. Good increase in cargo capacity, too.

kruiseri · Sun Feb 10, 2019 5:26 pm

User001 wrote:
kruiseri wrote:
I stand corrected on the times. I was quoting what they told as at the lounge.

Of course I am in no position to say how MAN should or should not prepare for snowfall. If the main customers (=local residents and airlines) accept that level of service, then fine.

Well, you tell me honestly now. Rather than the comment of ‘if your happy with poor levels of service, then fine’, If you were the CEO of the airport, responsible for budgets and everything else, what would you do?

Would you

A) spend millions, upon millions of pounds in new snow equipment, training, de-icing rigs, extra staff and everything else needed (which means other budgets have to be cut to accommodate as you are a business without unlimited budgets and need to invest/make profits etc). Remember, MAN sees this type of snowfall probably 5 days out of 365 overall so that money tied up in all of that’s would lie redundant for up to 360 days a year.

B) keep what you have and just suck it up that those 5 days a year things are not going to move as quickly as you’d like, have the odd closure and work at trying to keep the other 360 days smoothly. Remember, that even the best snow clearing airports do have to close occasionally, so, they are not all perfect either.

So, it’s a Genuine question, what would you do if you were in the hot seat with a limited budget in front of you? Like I say, it’s a very different prospect when your sat in a lounge, tutting and muttering that ‘this is ridiculous’, to being the one who has to make those decisions and stand by them. Very different indeed.

I am quite sure there is a half (or even a quarter) way, it is not an pure either or question. If statistically as you say you get that sort of snowfall for maybe 5 days a week, there should be a contingency plan in place to deal with it with decent impact. Say max 1 hour runway closure which would mean that flights would be delayed but maybe not cancelled might be considered a decent impact. According to data given on a earlier post on that particular date the closure was 4hr 27 mins ( so my original 5+ hrs was a bit off)

The millions upon millions on snow removal equipment would be most likely an overkill, it is needed if you can expect to have constant snowfall for several hours/days on end which is not the case in MAN. However to remove a mere 5 cm of snow from a runway does not need that sort of hardware in place. For example you don't need to transport the snow anywhere as it melts quite quickly after being ploughed.

So to answer your question (and not knowing if that has already been done), I would study what it would take and what it would cost to achieve that sort of target (max 1 hr runway closure) and then make a decision.

Mullion · Sun Feb 10, 2019 8:36 pm

One of the big differences is Manchester gets a very wet snow not the powdery stuff you get in Scandinavia

User001 · Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:21 am

I am quite sure there is a half (or even a quarter) way, it is not an pure either or question.

I don’t think you fully understand this situation. You talk about a ‘half way measure’, but you don’t seem to get that the current set up is the ‘half way measure’.

So, at one end of the scale, you have the complete ‘do nothing’ approach. Don’t have a winter plan, don’t have the equipment, don’t have the staff and go to pot.
You then have the top end of the scale, which is the full bells and whistles (but don’t forget, even this doesn’t guarantee you stay closure free).

MAN has this half way measure. It has the right amount of resources for the level of snow Manchester has. If it were to spend any more on this, then it’s going to be going into the full ‘bells and whistles’ territory and that’s just a waste of both money and resource.

Frankly, you are not armed with all the facts, for example you claimed to be at the airport and still didn’t have the correct times for the closures which lends me to think you don’t understand how all of this works. Like I say, it’s very easy to sit there and say ‘should have, would have and could have’ when it’s not you tasked with making the important decisions. I feel you would think very, very differently if you were the top man in this scenario. And I’d like to point out, even with all the top grade, top budget resources, even the mighty Helsinki’s, Oslo’s and Copenhagen’s of the world are not immune for lengthy or frequent closures, so essentially, there is no perfect solution.

Anyway, this is going round and round, so, I’m going to leave it there and leave the thread to news and rumours.

David_itl · Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:09 pm

Passenger numbers up 7% in January to 1.78 million https://marketingstockport.co.uk/news/manchester-airport-passenger-numbers-continue-to-soar/

DobboDobbo · Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:58 pm

David_itl wrote:
Passenger numbers up 7% in January to 1.78 million https://marketingstockport.co.uk/news/manchester-airport-passenger-numbers-continue-to-soar/

An interesting graphic showing some of the long haul growth in January.

Selected from the graphic - DOH +29.8%, MCT +21%, SIN +9.5%, HKG +6.5%, PEK +11.7%.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... M1R6TYc9oQ

JakTrax · Mon Feb 11, 2019 3:39 pm

The 9W flight this morning was a 333, for the first time - not sure whether it was load-related or simply aircraft availability.

Karl

Mullion · Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:22 pm

Loads have been pretty good recently with a high number transfering onto VS US flights

Scottiedog · Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:46 pm

It's a while since I posted any updates on the MANTP project, however here are details from PlaneTalk Issue #77

Scottiedog · Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:47 pm

TUGMASTER · Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:46 pm

Has anybody got the flight details for the MAN-GOT vis CBG route..?

Mullion · Tue Feb 12, 2019 7:46 am

Basically an Astra Zeneca flight

User001 · Tue Feb 12, 2019 7:51 am

TUGMASTER wrote:
Has anybody got the flight details for the MAN-GOT vis CBG route..?

https://airportrumours.blogspot.com/201 ... eases.html

User001 · Thu Feb 14, 2019 5:33 pm

Lufthansa Cargo to return:

https://twitter.com/airportrumours/stat ... 29505?s=21

Scottiedog · Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:26 pm

Full credit to PlaneTalk from which issue 78 is taken:

Whilst appreciating that some of these photographs are identical to those in previous posts, they are included in order to show the complete update as provided by PlaneTalk.

SeanM1997 · Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:04 pm

Loganair will launch a new route from City of Derry/Londonderry to Manchester from 24 May 2019, daily except Saturday, on Embraer 145

Flight times will be:
MONDAY-FRIDAY
LDY 1115-1225 MAN
MAN 1255-1405 LDY

SUNDAY
LDY 1400-1510 MAN
MAN 1540-1650 LDY

Luftymatt · Fri Feb 22, 2019 1:16 pm

SeanM1997 wrote:
Loganair will launch a new route from City of Derry/Londonderry to Manchester from 24 May 2019, daily except Saturday, on Embraer 145

Flight times will be:
MONDAY-FRIDAY
LDY 1115-1225 MAN
MAN 1255-1405 LDY

SUNDAY
LDY 1400-1510 MAN
MAN 1540-1650 LDY

Good to see Loganair stepping in and saving some of these services. Good news for both Derry and Manchester.

Mullion · Fri Feb 22, 2019 4:25 pm

Must be confident as bmi hadn`t even started route

jubaexpress · Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:14 pm

Mullion wrote:
Must be confident as bmi hadn`t even started route

BMI probably had bigger issues going on.

Are Loganair also taking over the PSO route from Derry to Stansted?

Mullion · Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:59 pm

Yes they are

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