Airport flies headlong into reopening disaster
IHAVE a lot of sympathy for all those businesses trying desperately to get back on their feet after the pandemic.
Despite being forced to open and close more often than a swing-door wedding venues now appear to be working at full capacity.
Restaurants who reopened to discover half their staff found new jobs during the pandemic had a really difficult start but have now got their act together.
How event organisers have managed to get back into full swing after having no business at all for two years is something of a miracle.
Manchester Airport on the other hand has made a total botch of their reopening and I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Retailers have absolutely no idea how many shoppers will return to the High Street.
Many of their customers will continue to shop on line but how many?
Will Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi etc retain all their customers or not?
Will the mighty Amazon see all that extra lockdown trade melt away or will customers continue to shop on line to the same extent?
All these businesses have no idea when where and if their customers will return and have all done a fantastic job of adjusting to the flow.
I can’t recall queuing at the till in any of them more than a few minutes.
Not so Manchester Airport who know exactly what passenger numbers are coming through days and weeks in advance.
This is information most retailers would die for
Apart from having their customer numbers they also know the exact time and day to expect them.
Like all airports Manchester is a local monopole unaffected by the huge competition faced by other businesses and yet with all that information available they have made a total disaster of re-opening.
News footage abounds with videos of frustrated angry passengers stood in line for up to five hours to get through security.
Can you imagine that happening in any other retail business?
With all that advance information it’s quite an achievement to be so hopelessly prepared for the inevitable increase in passenger numbers.
Given the nationwide publicity this fiasco has attracted I expect passenger confidence to be at rock bottom and this time they have only themselves to blame. Manchester Airport now have the Mayor, Andy Burnham, suggesting they use the fire service and the army to get passengers through security.
Can you imagine that offer being made to Tesco? As for struggling to attract staff that’s a lame excuse considering every other business has the same problem.