Manchester: Route Development & Rumours

SPD Travels on X did add "but likely just hedging which slots to use and expected to be 4-7 weekly".

Full credit to #laviation on Pprune for the following - I'm travelling home today by road and so will not have time to post my own views:

NB with Malaysian.
2 daily slots are held, but I would realistically expect a 3/4 weekly morning flight to get the ball rolling (as SPD Travels alluded to on TwitterX).
Very good catch by the routes team considering they only serve LHR and CDG in Europe nowadays. I’d surmise it’s an opportunistic play to capture a share of the connecting market while the Gulf carriers are weakened, as well as serve the decently sized O&D market between MAN and Kuala Lumpur - around 50,000 passengers a year. Even with fuel costs, the A350 is a much more economical and viable option than the old B744/B772 that was used on the route in the early noughties.

Other highlights and commentary

• Riyadh Air daily - up from the planned 3x weekly this summer. It all depends on B787/A321 deliveries.
• Emirates 5 daily (3 A388/2 A359) - Don’t expect this at all TBH. If anything did come to fruition, then likely to be the EK33/34 late evening turn.
• Etihad 3 daily (3 B77W) - One of the more likely to happen, given EY’s aggressive expansion network wide and strong loads at MAN, though I’d say 18 weekly on 2 B789/1 B77W the most probable outcome. They were very briefly at 18 weekly for about 2 weeks in February until the Iran kick off.
• Qatar 4 daily (1 A35K, 3 B789) - Again, likewise with Emirates, sticking to 3 daily given the geopolitical situation is what seems to be the plan - 3x B77W.
• PIA to daily - They’re up to 5 weekly (4 ISB/1 LHE) by July, and with more and more B777s slowly coming back online, it’s entirely plausible that we’ll see ISB up to 5 weekly and LHE to 2 weekly by the winter season.
• Air Canada YYZ - already confirmed and bookable. The first time that AC have been year round since the 1990s, and between them and TS, the most seats we’ve had to Toronto in the winter in a very long time.
• Air Baltic KAO - already confirmed and bookable. I really do wonder why they haven’t jumped back on RIX given the great loads on Ryanair, but seem to want to add this rather random route. Still, great to see them back.
• easyJet to SPX/NUE/KLU? - Based off of my arithmetic with seats and slots, out of the new routes applied for, SPX/NUE/KLU are with U2. Giza (Sphinx) would be a more than welcome addition for pyramid seekers - the MS service is great, but the trek from CAI to Giza is a nightmare with traffic. Would make Cairo 12x weekly from MAN, joining 10 MS flights weekly. Nuremberg appears to be aimed at Xmas markets in Nov/Dec, and Klagenfurt at skiiers.
• Ryanair big increase - Applied for what would make 12/13 extra daily flights. Is MoL happy with having an entire terminal to himself? It would certainly seem so!

I would have thought SPX would be U2 seasonal. Given that U2 do not operate at NUE or KLU currently, these two are more likely to be FR. PMO on U2 and CAG on FR would also make sense.