CD Traveller » Manchester Airport

The BTA winners

Editor — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:42:31 +0000

Remember voting for which travel companies you thought were the best in the British Travel Awards? Altogether, 700,000 votes were received. Last Wednesday the winners were announced.
The best city break destination was awarded to New York with Barcelona and Paris as the runners-up. Australia was voted to be the best country to visit pipping Spain and Italy whereas Florida – that major British favourite – got the nod as best US state to visit.
St Moritz in Switzerland was voted best European ski destination over two French contenders, Val d’Isere and Chamonix while Aspen in Colorado beat Whistler and Lake Tahoe in the North American award.
Disneyland was the best theme park worldwide and Alton Towers won the UK honour over Legoland and Thorpe Park.
Shearings was voted best domestic holiday company of the year whilst Parkdean won the best holiday park operator and Hoseasons was best waterways operator. The Eden Project in Corwall was best UK leisure attraction and Edinburgh Castle was best heritage attraction. Staying with the domestic awards, Cornwall was voted best holiday county and St Ives was the best seaside town over Whitby and Bournemouth.
It won’t surprise many of you that the perennial winner, Emirates , has done it again in being named best airline and it also wins for best first class/business airline. Virgin Atlantic was the best economy class airline and was also the best airline for customer service.
The Manchester Airports Group must be pretty happy in that Manchester won the best major airport category and East Midlands (which they also operate) was UK airport of the year and the best regional airport as well.
Amongst the tour operator categories, the two biggies did well with Thomson getting 18 awards and Thomas Cook, 15. Virgin also won 15 awards across both the airline and Virgin Holidays. The BTA has been running for six years and every year one company has won a category every single time. It did it again this year so congratulations to the Post Office for best provider of travel insurance. You certainly do like them! And thank you from the organisers and CD-Traveller for all your votes. Shortly we will be able to reveal which of you has won the prizes on offer. The lucky winners are still being contacted about their prizes.

Regional Air Passenger Taxation

Editor — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:31:40 +0000

Heathrow Terminal 3

This daft idea was put up fourteen regional airports in the UK to the APD consultation process. They have jointly signed a submission saying that replacing APD with a tax on the busiest airports would stimulate the regions. In effect they want the tax to be placed on passengers using Gatwick, Stansted and Heathrow, those being the three busiest.
What’s behind their thinking?
They claim that the regions have been particularly badly hit by the economic downturn. They have also fewer business flyers than exist in the south east of England and that their proposal would make better use of airport capacity.
Since the fourth largest airport in the country is Manchester – and they are a signatory to this idea- the proposal would not apply to them. Therefore it is solely directed at the 25% of the population of the UK that live in London and the south east. Why should the people in this area pay a tax that the rest of the UK doesn’t? And if you follow this logic shouldn’t Manchester Airport users pay a tax so that Blackpool airport can compete more equally? And shouldn’t Bristol be taxed so that Exeter can compete? Plymouth airport is closing so maybe Exeter should be taxed this allowing Plymouth to stay open.
Airports have their own mechanism for determining prices. There are development taxes at Blackpool, Newcastle, Newquay and Norwich to name but four. There are plastic bag charges, drop-off charges and cleverly designed schemes to fleece passengers of their money. All of this contributes to their own problems as well as the economic downturn. So why should tax systems be used to help out poorly run or greedy airports by making them appear more efficient and competitive?
Let’s suppose there were such a regional tax and set at £12 per person. Do they really think that someone from the south east will drive to their nearest airport that doesn’t have the tax? It would cost more than that in fuel or train fares. And in case these airports haven’t realised it, the reason passengers go to Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick is because the flights that they want are there. Until regional airports can offer a range of destinations that compete with the bigger airports, the bigger ones will win passengers. If APD was removed from the regions, and assuming a reasonable range of destinations, will this cause more people to fly from those airports? There will be some increase on short-haul flights. On long haul there will hardly be any difference at all. People from Leeds, for example, will still go to Manchester because it offers more destinations so there will still be rivalry from nearby places.
Separately, Glasgow Prestwick says the tax should be devolved to the Scottish government. They say if it were and APD was removed an extra 750,000 would fly through their airport each year. They base this on their 2008 economic report which, coincidentally, was the best year for passenger numbers that Prestwick has ever had. Passenger numbers have dropped by about 760,000 since then. Now it has just 1.6 million passengers a year so it seems unbelievably optimistic that removing a £12 tax will generate a 47% increase in passenger numbers. And it will still fall slightly below their peak numbers of 3 years ago. And if Scotland operates a different tax, the problems that Northern Ireland is having with the Republic will be replicated.
No, the whole idea is cock-eyed, discriminatory and badly thought out. The sooner the idea is dumped the better. The sooner the airport owners who signed this document concentrate on attracting more airlines to deliver the services their prospective passengers want, the better for all concerned.

Now, Austria

adrian — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 04:27:48 +0000

Don’t countries want us to visit them? Have many got a tourism death wish that they cannot understand?
Austria has decided to follow Germany and introduce an eco- tax from January 2011 on passengers leaving from its airports. Just in time for the skiing season, the time when the largest number of visitors will be expected. They will charge €8 to fly to a European destination and €40 elsewhere. And how much will this tax bring them? Estimates vary from between €50-€70 million per year. And how much will they lose as visitors decide to go elsewhere? Yet again, the daft feature of this is that the tax is charged only to airline passengers. Take a train; pay nothing. Drive; pay nothing. Fly into neighbouring Hungary or Slovakia and pay nothing. Bratislava Airport in Slovakia is just 37 miles from Vienna. Guess what airlines like Ryanair, and easyJet might do? Yes, move their Austrian flights to Bratislava because it will be cheaper for passengers. Guess which country might lose out in revenue and visitors? Austria.
It might be different if Austria was an island like Ireland or Great Britain. There are fewer options in evading APD. But for Austria to make this tax work efficiently, it would need neighbouring countries to introduce similar rates. Remember the Netherlands? They scrapped their tax from July 2009 and whilst we were told it was because the economic conditions had already caused a decrease in air passenger numbers did anyone believe that was the reason? Nothing to do with a decline in incoming visitors of course.
We know that our government is trying its best to stop us going abroad by raising the tax known as Air Passenger Duty as from 1st November. Then if you fly to Europe (or up to 2,000 miles) you will pay £12 (up by £1 and up from £5 in 2007); if you fly between 2 and 4,000 miles (this includes, Egypt, Israel, Canada, United States then will pay £60. (up by £15 and up from £20 in 2007) To anywhere between 4 and 6,000 miles which includes the Caribbean and India, the tax is up £25 to £75 (it was only £20 in 2007) and if you fly to Australia, New Zealand or the Far East then you will pay £85, up by £30. (Only £20 in 2007) If you fly business class the taxes are doubled again.
This tax also deters people from visiting us because they have to pay it when they return home. For the UK tourism is counted in the billions of pounds. How much can afford to deter the visitor to our shores? When will they start going elsewhere? Now is the answer.
Air Asia has said that it will not now operate from Manchester to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia because of APD being too high. The airline will now operate a Paris-KL flight instead.
According to “The Times,” the UN is considering a climate tax on airline tickets to raise $6 billion a year, half to be retained by the countries that raise the tax and the other to be used for… Who is going to administer that one? And how will the tax be distributed?
Not far away is the panto season. And we all know what happened to the goose that laid the golden egg!

Visitors Entering and Leaving the USA

adrian — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:49:00 +0000

UPDATE: 17 MAY the Department of Homeland Security tells us that the greeen I-94 card will still be used for the time being (probably at least a year) as things run in parallel until a decision is made on when the I-94 can be dropped. They also confirm that on your first entry to the US you will have to have all 10 fingerprints made but on subsequent visits only the four fingers of the right hand will be required to be fingerprinted as this will provide a sufficient match with the previous data that they have recorded.

The Department of Homeland Security in the US has introduced some new procedures. Instead of just having index fingers fingerprinted, you will now have to have all fingers and thumbs scanned. Up until recently this has been tested at some airports but now it will go nationwide. Howevert if you have had this procedure done once (I was last in the US three months ago), it appears that you may not have to have it done again. I flew into New York’s JFK airport yesterday and whilst other passengers had all ten digits scanned, I only had the four fingers on my right hand scanned.
You will still have your photograph taken on entry as well.

I have written before about how the ESTA programme of filling in your contact details, passport information etc online will replace the I-94 green form that all visitors (unless you have a visa in which case it is white) have to complete. Despite the fact that ESTA is in place and that you won’t be allowed to enter the US unless you have completed this online form in advance, the I-94 forms are still in use, and are being stamped and checked at the point of entry. You still need to retain it in your passport for surrender when you leave.
A few years ago when I flew out of Chicago to return to the UK, I had my thumbs scanned by a portable reader before I was able to catch my flight. At sometime over the next year, it has been announced that capturing biometrics (presumably photographs and fingerprints) for all departing visitors will be introduced.

Back home, Manchester Airport has announced that at Terminal 2, hand searching will be replaced by body scanning. This trial has been approved by the European Commission and follows the test of a single machine at the terminal. If this test is successful, expect it to be employed at the other two terminals as well. The airport reiterates that the image cannot be stored or captured and that the offices that operate the body scanning machines will not be able to recognise people.

What’s an Airport For?

adrian — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:15:20 +0000

Last week The Sunday Times wrote a piece by Matt Rudd about how unfriendly airports are to children. It presupposes the question that airports are supposed to be friendly in the first place. Not just for children but for everyone.

Airports are there to enable you to catch a flight to somewhere so surely the prime aim is to get you through and out as soon as possible? If you are flying in then the same applies. It is get you off the plane and out into the real world. Then some bright spark decided to add duty free shops, then cafés, then restaurants, then shops, then lounges, then viewing areas and places where you can spend £20 on a ticket to win a car. All of a sudden they were bigger than villages. All they need is a Tesco or a Sainsbury and I can do my weekly shop there as well. This is what Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester have become,- towns where flying seems almost an afterthought. (some are so big they can’t be called villages.) And it is estimated that over 1,000 people sleep on the floor or on seats at Stansted each evening. See , it’s a town complete with it’s own dossers?

Edinburgh has recently been remodelled and Glasgow is next for the treatment.

Has it got to the point now where getting passengers in and out has got so difficult to resolve merely because everything else has been poured into airports so that airports can make greater profits? Get rid of some of the retailing and there will be more room for scanners and security improvements. Get rid of people hawking credit cards and get rid of a coffee shop or two and we might not need to expand an airport into the size of a city.

Airports have lounges for business an first class passengers to go into. And why do passengers go there? For peace and quiet. There are no shops and no hawkers. They can just wait for a plane. Maybe that’s why they are so popular.

I am attracted more and more to smaller airports like London City where being on island stops development or where, such as Newquay, there seems little desire to grow. At least those airports are closer to delivering the service that most passengers want.

BAA Let Off The Hook

adrian — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:51:47 +0000

In a view that surprised nearly everyone, probably including BAA themselves, there has been a ruling that BAA may not have to sell of one of their Scottish airports (Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow) nor dispose of Stansted. BAA appealed against the decision of the Competition Commission and the Competition Appeal Tribunal has agreed with BAA.

Why?

Because of a technicality. One of the Competition Commission’s panellists (Professor Peter Moizer) was also an advisor to Manchester Airport Group which was interested in buying Gatwick. The ruling said that although there was no element of bias, there could be a belief that there might be one. And they are right. Why on earth didn’t the Competition Commission ask Prof. Moizer to stand down before the enquiry began if they didn’t know of his involvement? If they didn’t why did the Professor not make everyone concerned about a conflict of interest? The Professor, after all, is Dean of Business Studies at Leeds University and should have a better grasp than most of the implications of him judging this. He did eventually stand down but the damage was done.

The taxpayer has had to fund this waste of time. And it isn’t even over now. Three of the members of the commission investigating BAA have had their contracts extended to 9 March 2011 so even more is due to be spent. So now BAA has to make yet more submissions and the worst case could be that the whole investigation will have to be restarted.

And yet there is still the problem that BAA controls the 3 most significant airports in Scotland. That is to nobody’s benefit and maybe not even to BAA (a sale of one would help reduce some of the heavy debt) But the poor old traveller still has to put up with it after the incompetence of the Competition Commission.

Customer Service in Travel

adrian — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:20:46 +0000

This is the time of the year when the National Customer Service Awards are announced. In any industry service is important. Good service leads to satisfaction. Satisfaction can lead to loyalty and repeat business. No customer likes being ill treated, ignored, patronised or fobbed off with meaningless official waffle so awards that support good service are welcome. But travel and tourism doesn’t seem to have done to well in this year’s awards. Is that because they didn’t enter or they did, but weren’t shortlisted for the final?

Before looking at that subject, I should congratulate those from travel and tourism who did walk off with trophies. Butlins were awarded Best Service Employer of the Year and Pauline Wilson from Virgin Holidays was named Customer Service Manager of the Year. Manchester Airport, Chiltern Railways, Cross Country and the National Maritime Museum all made the shortlist but were pipped at the last moment. In the case of Manchester Airport they lost out in two categories and the Group (which also owns East Midlands and Humberside airports) lost out as well.

Last year 13 different companies related to travel and tourism were shortlisted so the number has halved. As I said earlier, this could be because companies decided not to enter. But last year there was a category for Customer Service Team of the Year for Leisure & Tourism and not this year. There was also a similar award for airlines, transport and distribution which failed to survive into 2009. So it could be that travel and tourism companies saw little reason to enter.

This week there was the news story about the person who requested a complaint form from the guard on a train. As the journey ended, the guard came over the tannoy apologising for not managing to get the form to the passenger because overcrowding made it difficult to get through the train! Enough said. An attempt at customer service defeated by the very reason for it.

Customer service needs rewarding in whichever industry it is in.

Did You Vote for the Winners?

adrian — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:07:21 +0000

Last night the winners were announced of the British Travel Awards. CD-Traveller is one of the sponsors because these are the only awards where you, the traveller and holidaymaker, can vote. So it’s not just the travel industry patting itself on the back. And over 100,000 of you voted so our thanks, and those of the organisers, for taking the time to vote.

By voting you could also win but those prizes will be announced a bit later.

So for now, these are some of the winners.

You chose First Choice as the best short haul tour operator and Virgin Holidays as the best long haul one. Your best airport in the UK was Manchester Airport and overseas, Singapore. The best UK destination was Cornwall and your favourite country to visit was the USA. Your favourite citybreak destination was Barcelona and you thought that Dubai was the best tourist board. American Airlines was voted the best airline and Easyjet, the best no-frills airline. The best cruise company was Cunard and the best ferry operator, P & O. Shearings were voted the best tour operator for escorted tours and Thomson was voted the best in a number of categories including all-inclusive, best to the Middle East and the Med.

For the full list go to www.britishtravelawards.com/tip_awbf.php

Just a reminder. The survey about your future travel thoughts is open until November 30^th. We’ll send you a reminder a little closer to the time as well but you if you haven’t filled it in you can do so by going to www.britishtravelawards.com/tip_rp.php.

And thanks once again for voting. As soon as the winners amongst the voters is known, we’ll let you know.

Airport Landing Fees

adrian — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:48:41 +0000

Both Ryanair and easyjet have complained about the landing fees being charged by certain airports. According to easyjet, Luton Airport’s fees have risen by over 25% over the last few years and that it is why it has cut the number of flights operating from there. The same applies to the cutbacks by Ryanair at Manchester, Dublin and Stansted airports.

At a time when airlines are having difficulty filling seats and losing money due to fuel prices and the inability to charge higher prices, airport landing charges are a sore point. Shouldn’t airports cut prices or at least, not raise prices and take some of the strain? too many have increased prices thinking they a market that will continue to use them come what may. these two airlines at least have thumbed their noses at particular airports.

Take note then of Kansai international Airport at Osaka in Japan. They have cut landing fees by 80% if airlines use either larger planes or increase the number of flights. The incentive lasts until March 2011 when most economists think we will be comfortably out of the recession. The airport wins, the airlines win as does the passenger since prices won’t go up.

It’s time airports in our part of the world considered something similar.