Airport.

[CrazyDave]

17 minutes ago, lcd said:

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/flight-disruption-warning-as-isle-of-man-airport-left-fragile-by-staff-shortages-667670

Wow.....

What’s your point?

The situation is better than last year thanks to steps they have taken, but they are advising people that the issue hasn’t gone away completely and that at busy times and if there are issues like staff illness there might be an impact.

It also says the situation should improve further later this year.

Whats the issue?  Did you even read the article?

[Mercenary]

I do think things have generally improved at the airport in last 18 months. It was obviously at a very all time low before with COVID etc and whether these are down to new management I don't know, but:

- ATC situation has improved, seems to be much less knock on delays. Also easyJet situation seems to have improved.

- Security generally seems smoother and less bottlenecking of no staff on when many flights scheduled

- they seem less inclined to shove everyone downstairs in the holding cattle pen, which used to be the way (30 mins in hot room without enough seats)

- parking situation improved now it's not a free for all (although I don't find the ringgo solution that useable)

- information better on delays etc 

 

Still areas for improvement but in general better.

 

Edit: also the passenger assistance services seem smoother, this was adding substantial delays to plane loading & unloading for a period.

Edited February 25 by Mercenary

[A fool and his money.....]

On 2/22/2024 at 4:02 PM, Nellie said:

I don't usually defend the Airport, but these ATC issues are now just part of life, and, as a rule, they seem to try to schedule them when there's not much traffic scheduled. All part of living in Alf's Island Paradise. 

There is a planned closure at Ronaldsway between 11.00 and 11.35 daily. To get in by 11.00, easyJet needed to be out of Gatwick by 10.00 (give or take 5 minutes). This would have been two hours late. 

It seems that their announced 20 minutes delay (to 08.20) was a bit optimisitic, but if they'd been rolling by 09.00,  they'd have had plenty of time to get here. 

The tracker shows they were eventually rolling at 09.47. So whatever went on between 08.20 and 09.47, it wasn't IOM ATC's fault.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/g-eztc#3418193e

I also know, from personal experience, that some easyJet pilots do not read the NOTAM's which tell them the closure times, until it is too late, and they are almost here.

Overall. it looks like mostly easyJet's fault, on this occasion.

 

Were delayed an last Monday morning at 8 o'clock due to ATC being closed, I guess that was Easyjet's fault too.

Nothing to do with chairman Alf's Idea to spend importing anyone for any job requiring more than two GCSE's rather than waste money training any of the local yokels.

[IOM]

5 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

What’s your point?

The situation is better than last year thanks to steps they have taken, but they are advising people that the issue hasn’t gone away completely and that at busy times and if there are issues like staff illness there might be an impact.

It also says the situation should improve further later this year.

Whats the issue?  Did you even read the article?

Total agree . Worth noting as well that ATC shortages are a global issue . He goes on to say there are huge shortages in America sounds to me like we have a plan and are moving in the right direction. 

[Happier diner]

32 minutes ago, Mercenary said:

they seem less inclined to shove everyone downstairs in the holding cattle pen, which used to be the way (30 mins in hot room without enough seats

I hope so. How did you measure 'less inclined' though. They still did it last time we were there. They herded all the departees down as soon as the incoming plane came over the horizon. We just refuse to go through the gate until they actually start boarding.

[CrazyDave]

35 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

Were delayed an last Monday morning at 8 o'clock due to ATC being closed, I guess that was Easyjet's fault too.

Nothing to do with chairman Alf's Idea to spend importing anyone for any job requiring more than two GCSE's rather than waste money training any of the local yokels.

I get the impression that easyJet use the ATC closed excuse much more than they should.

Also, did they specifically say it was Ronaldsway  or at the other end?  I was on a flight a few months ago where the delay was very clearly explained as being down to ATC at Gatwick and that appeared on a local moaning group a day later with some good blaming our airport.

[IOM]

12 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

I hope so. How did you measure 'less inclined' though. They still did it last time we were there. They herded all the departees down as soon as the incoming plane came over the horizon. We just refuse to go through the gate until they actually start boarding.

I don’t think it’s the airport that is doing this it’s most likely Menzies who are acting on behalf of the airline . I think EasyJet are more inclined to do this maybe try raising it with whoever you are flying with . 

[Mercenary]

34 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

I hope so. How did you measure 'less inclined' though. They still did it last time we were there. They herded all the departees down as soon as the incoming plane came over the horizon. We just refuse to go through the gate until they actually start boarding.

Down there for less time, used to be horrific.

[Jarndyce]

35 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

How did you measure 'less inclined' though

[Harry Lamb]

We don't want a protracted debate

[Roger Mexico]

37 minutes ago, lcd said:

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/flight-disruption-warning-as-isle-of-man-airport-left-fragile-by-staff-shortages-667670

Wow.....

There's actually a second article based on the same interview (and confusingly using the same video clip):

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/easyjet-frustrated-by-claims-airline-could-pull-out-of-the-isle-of-man-667755

though again the headline isn't quite true (there's nothing to say how easyJet's feelings are) but if you read what Cobb had to say about the fact:

 [...] that Ronaldsway was a ‘very unusual’ commodity for the airline.

He said: ‘EasyJet are a commercial operator – they fly where it makes money.

‘We are very unusual for easyJet in that we are an incredibly short sector that they get good yields on.’

But he warned the reports could become a self-fulfilling prophesy – if they lead to people not booking.

‘There comes a point where an aircraft on the ground is cheaper than a quarter full plane flying’, he said.

This is the point that some of us have been making for a long time.  The IOM routes are very useful to easyJet and they can probably run them profitably on lower loads than other routes.  But of course they will still need a decent level of return or they will stop.

Cobb's interview at least lets us know that he has a realistic view of the current air travel situation ('fragile' is a very good word for the ATC position) both locally and more widely and that he's not not afraid to discuss it publicly.  Both of which you'd think would be pretty minimal requirements for a senior public servant, but is actually fairly rare.  Mind you when you meet some of them you can see why.

[asitis]

40 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Cobb's interview at least lets us know that he has a realistic view of the current air travel situation ('fragile' is a very good word for the ATC position) both locally and more widely and that he's not not afraid to discuss it publicly.  Both of which you'd think would be pretty minimal requirements for a senior public servant, but is actually fairly rare.  Mind you when you meet some of them you can see why.

There is a lot going on in ATC some of it unavoidable, some of it shall we say, self inflicted !

[CrazyDave]

3 hours ago, Mercenary said:

Down there for less time, used to be horrific.

Horrific!! 😂

That might be the most Isle Of Man thing I have ever read

[Mikimoto]

4 hours ago, Harry Lamb said:

We don't want a protracted debate

There's a degree of sense in what you say.

[Roger Mexico]

6 hours ago, Mercenary said:

I do think things have generally improved at the airport in last 18 months. It was obviously at a very all time low before with COVID etc and whether these are down to new management I don't know, but:

- ATC situation has improved, seems to be much less knock on delays. Also easyJet situation seems to have improved.

- Security generally seems smoother and less bottlenecking of no staff on when many flights scheduled

- they seem less inclined to shove everyone downstairs in the holding cattle pen, which used to be the way (30 mins in hot room without enough seats)

- parking situation improved now it's not a free for all (although I don't find the ringgo solution that useable)

- information better on delays etc 

Still areas for improvement but in general better.

Edit: also the passenger assistance services seem smoother, this was adding substantial delays to plane loading & unloading for a period.

As Cobb is honest enough to admit, most of the current improvements at Ronaldsway are seasonal.  It's not just that there's slightly fewer flights here and so less pressure, the airlines (particularly easyJet) aren't flying their holiday programmes so their schedules are less tight and they have replacement aircraft available.  He did warn to expect more problems this Summer, though he hoped they wouldn't be as bad.

• ATC is still very tight and it will be three years before the students come on line and others still have to complete validation.  The management problem precedes Cobb of course and he probably doesn't have the power to do anything about it.  He can't really do anything than try to keep things calm and hope.
• Security improvement may simply be due to passenger numbers still being well down on the previous peak both in Summer and pre-Covid.  Similarly less pressure will mean that Menzies staff don't feel they need to put people downstairs so as boarding delay is minimised.
• Parking chaos was mainly caused by DoI (because the Airport was leaderless) refusing to do anything to sort things out until they could impose their preferred solution of Ringgo.  It's telling that they didn't wait for the new Director to arrive before doing so, which you would thought would be polite.  But it certainly doesn't seem to have returned car park usage to previous levels, even allowing for the drop in passengers.
• Communication does seem to have improved under Cobb (see this interview) though it's also telling that it took nearly a year before the Facebook account started being used as it ought to be. Clearly there's a lot of cultural resistance in the civil service of letting the plebs know anything.

One little thing I didn't realise until these articles is that UK and EU ATC qualifications are no longer mutually recognised.  I actually wondered if this was just the journalist misunderstanding something but it appears to be true, eg:

As the UK is no longer able to recognise any Ratings, Rating Endorsements or Licence Endorsements obtained outside the UK, the reissued licence will only contain those Ratings, Rating Endorsements and Licence Endorsements that were current on their UK licence prior to the exchange.