[Anonymous]

[bluemooner]

Having seen the Heathrow objectors receive suspended sentences, it takes me back to the Manchester 2nd Runway protests of yesteryear. The powers that be, extolled the business virtues of this, that it would bring investment to the North. As Manchester is pretty much the centre of the North being under 50 miles from Liverpool Leeds Sheffield Potteries and the Central Lancashire towns of Preston Blackburn and Blackburn, it all made sense.
So what has happened, a proliferation of holiday flights hardly bringing any revenue to the area and certainly little investment.
The concept of the Northern Powerhouse seems a nonsense. If government want to diversify the business centre from the South East, we need to be seen to be a truly world wide known area.
Looking at the Airmap of the world, there are no direct flights from the North or Scotland to Australia, Central America South America, Central and Southern Africa, Japan Korea to name a few. Isn’t it about time that Government told airlines (including and in particular BA) that if you want slots at Heathrow, then some flights must go to the regions. Not only the Northern Powerhouse, but to Glasgow/Edinburgh too. Some of those holiday flights can easily be redirected to Liverpool and Leeds/Bradford, airports in need of further business.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

I don’t think that is entirely correct. In the last few years we have seen increases in services and the entry of Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Hainan airlines, Virgin Atlantic now daily to Atlanta and more routes offered by United. The ME3 offer 1 stop connections to many points out to Africa / Asia and Australia. Also consider there are no direct flights to Australia at all by any carrier and the only through service from Europe is from London on BA/QANTAS.

So yes – investment has come with a more robust Manchester Airport and I don’t doubt they will have more routes going forward.

[FDOS_UK]

As a regular MAN user, I can confirm that it is thriving with business and leisure flights.

[bluemooner]

Thanks for your comments. Yes I agree there are more flights to East Coast USA, Middle East and China but not to the West Coast USA and countries/continents I listed. Meanwhile down in the South East airlines are fighting for slots. So my contention that we need more direct services to the North (and Scotland) will add to the bone fide of the Northern Powerhouse. Businessmen don’t want to have to sit around connecting airports like AMS PAR LHR FRA wasting time and money. I regularly travel to Durban on business. This means flying to one of the above hubs, then to JNB. Adding minimum of 5 hours transit time at 2 airports. Hardly conducive to business.

[SenatorGold]

There was a time when both Qantas and South African Airways served Manchester (about 30 and 20 years ago respectively I think). Both will have had their own reasons for discontinuing their services. SAA fly now to few destinations in Europe (only London, Frankfurt and Munich) compared to 20 years ago. They are unlikely to return to Manchester.

As far as Durban is concerned, until about 1997 it used to be served by both BA and SAA from London with a stop en route (Johannesburg in the case of SAA, variously Harare and Johannesburg in the case of BA). If ever direct flights between Durban and UK are to be resumed (and there has been much talk of it), the likely destination would be London. If SAA stopped flying between Cape Town and London, they are unlikely to resume flights between Durban and London let alone start flying to Manchester.

Durban is now served by Emirates, Qatar and Turkish. They are options to consider to avoid two changes of plane from Manchester.

[bluemooner]

Since commercially Manchester and Durban are the 2nd largest business centres in their respective countries – it would make sense for direct flights Manchester to Johannesburg and/or London to Durban. There are no none stop direct flights from Europe to Durban. Yes you can go one stop via Dubai, but the extra journey time means it is faster to go 2 stops via a European hub and Johannesburg.
Durban also has a superb climate March to June before the summer in Europe gets into full heat, so there must be a significant up market leisure industry to tap into as well as commercial and business reasons.

[esselle]

Manchester is my home airport, and in my peak flying years of the 90’s and early 00’s, it offered little in the way of long haul directs (SQ via MCH, CX via AMS etc), but that has changed significantly and unless you want to feed into the BA network over LHR, you have huge choice from MAN today. And the confidence that MAG has in the future only needs to be measured by their expansion plans recently announced.

[AMcWhirter]

In fact, SQ used to fly MAN-SIN non-stop with B777-200 but when the route switched to B777-300ER it was then routed via MUC.

As for Durban …well SAA is heavily in debt but if the govt does privatise the airline then we may see some changes.

[esselle]

Last time I flew SQ from MAN it was on a 744!!

[SenatorGold]

According to reports of South Africa’s latest budget, the government appears to have taken the decision not to privatise SAA but to merge it with SA Express.

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