Airport.

[Banker]

40 minutes ago, Amadeus said:

Gatwick reduced flow to 16 movements per hour instead of 55 apparently. 

Surprised Iom airport not getting blamed 😂

[The Voice of Reason]

1 minute ago, Banker said:

Surprised Iom airport not getting blamed 😂

I’m not😂

[Roger Mexico]

3 hours ago, Amadeus said:

That’s the thing. They are trying to introduce things that work well on a larger scale but not here. Like the silly green and red parking zones. Makes sense in Gatwick where distances are huge. Makes zero sense here where the difference between Premium and Standard is 60 seconds walking time max. 

Yes of course it was ridiculous, but it was the only way they could react to the row over the increase in charges.  It's not permitted for Manx civil servants to back down on anything (because they can never admit to making a mistake) and there would have been Treasury pressure not to do so, so what they did was to rebrand the new charges as 'premium' for the nearest part and reduce the charge on the rest.

It's stupid but it's the sort of way you have to behave to do anything for the public in Isle of Man Government.

[Ringy Rose]

2 hours ago, Amadeus said:

Great user experience for a lost bag so far. Not.

Nothing to do with Loganair, everything to do with Menzies. It’ll turn up eventually. Mine did when it had a 10-day holiday in Manchester. And, in fairness to Menzies, they sent it to me in a taxi when it did.

ETA: I wonder if some bags weren’t loaded because of the very low MTOW of the ATR72.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Ringy Rose

[Ringy Rose]

4 hours ago, Amadeus said:

They are trying to introduce things that work well on a larger scale but not here. Like the silly green and red parking zones

We already had short stay and long stay, with different tariffs. Other than effectively expanding the spaces in the more popular long-stay car park and giving it a different name, precisely nothing changed.

But if we want to rant on about stupid changes that achieve nothing, shall we talk about DBC’s bins policies that you so adore? Thought not.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Ringy Rose

[Banker]

So far 3 flights cancelled today, Edinburgh, Liverpool both Logan air & easyJet all to do with airline issues 

[Two-lane]

Airport car park 3 is still unused, isn't it? I vaguely remember parking there years ago.

They could reduce the charges, get all three car parks in use, and overall get a higher income - or not.

No doubt the elite business brains of ManxForums will make the analysis - or not.

 

[Andy Onchan]

24 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

Airport car park 3 is still unused, isn't it? I vaguely remember parking there years ago.

They could reduce the charges, get all three car parks in use, and overall get a higher income - or not.

No doubt the elite business brains of ManxForums will make the analysis - or not.

 

I thought Car Park 3 was/is parking for the Freeport??

[Nellie]

32 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

Airport car park 3 is still unused, isn't it? I vaguely remember parking there years ago.

They could reduce the charges, get all three car parks in use, and overall get a higher income - or not.

No doubt the elite business brains of ManxForums will make the analysis - or not.

 

I guess there's no point in refurbishing car park 3 when the others are half empty and it seems unlikely that will change soon.

The bottom line is that the tariffs they came up with take no account of commercial realities and the alternatives people have. They are more expensive, and often a lot more expensive, than the valet parking services, and a taxi will be cheaper for many people who are going away for a week or more.

It's basically another stealth tax, but they forgot that people have options.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Nellie

[Roger Mexico]

On 9/20/2023 at 9:26 PM, Ringy Rose said:

I know people hate on RingGo, but there’s a reason more and more councils in the UK are outsourcing to them. And that’s cost.

The reason that councils use RingGo is that it can work for both on-and off-road parking.  As councils already use enforcement officials to check if vehicles have been in a space for longer than they are entitled, then it's not much extra cost to use the same staff to check up in car parks and not need to maintain existing infrastructure.

But that's not the situation at the Airport, so they need to employ extra people to monitor that people haven't parked without paying or paying for long enough.  We know this is happening because we know how many penalty notices have been issued (see FoI response 3344641):

Though what this represents in terms of income is another matter and what the costs of enforcement and payments to RingGo are we don't know.

What is clear is that very few airports use RingGo as far as I can tell.

[Amadeus]

3 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

Nothing to do with Loganair, everything to do with Menzies. It’ll turn up eventually. Mine did when it had a 10-day holiday in Manchester. And, in fairness to Menzies, they sent it to me in a taxi when it did.

ETA: I wonder if some bags weren’t loaded because of the very low MTOW of the ATR72.

Well I hope it turns up no matter who caused the mistake. Flight was almost empty so weight shouldn’t have been an issue. 

[newaccount]

49 minutes ago, Nellie said:

I guess there's no point in refurbishing car park 3 when the others are half empty and it seems unlikely that will change soon.

The bottom line is that the tariffs they came up with take no account of commercial realities and the alternatives people have. They are more expensive, and often a lot more expensive, than the valet parking services, and a taxi will be cheaper for many people who are going away for a week or more.

It's basically another stealth tax, but they forgot that people have options.

If official airport parking was cheaper than taxis or valet parking people would complain about them taking revenue away from other businesses. 

[Nellie]

58 minutes ago, newaccount said:

If official airport parking was cheaper than taxis or valet parking people would complain about them taking revenue away from other businesses. 

I disagree.

It would make perfect sense for the Airport parking to be cheaper than valet parking as it is a very different (and inferior) service. With the valet parking you get a car wash and hoover, and someone takes responsibilty for your vehicle. Most sensible people would expect to pay a little more for that. Conversely, they'd expect to pay less to just abandon their pride and joy on a piece of colour coded waste ground.

Taxis are a little trickier because the cost, and therefore the competitiveness, depends where you are travelling to/from. 

And there's no messing about with Ringo. Many different payment options are available.

It all looks to me as of the clowns who designed this tariff structure didn't even think about the need to make it competitive. 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Nellie

[Ringy Rose]

23 minutes ago, Nellie said:

would make perfect sense for the Airport parking to be cheaper than valet parking as it is a very different (and inferior) service.

I am surprised that the valet parking operators have not yet put their prices up to reflect the airport costs. I’m sure they will.

[Ringy Rose]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

What is clear is that very few airports use RingGo as far as I can tell.

They don’t tend to, but then airport car park pricing on the adjacent island is a lot more dynamic than it is here. The RingGo model wouldn’t work so easily where airports charge wildly different prices depending on when you book.

It’ll be interesting to see if the DOI have hired more traffic wardens specifically for the airport, or whether they’ve just added the airport to the existing rotas.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Ringy Rose