As far as I`m aware, Swissport dont cover Leeds/Bradford so you should be fine..

Can anyone give me any information on the strikes involving baggage handlers and check in staff at manchester airport on the 27th August as we are flying out at 9. 30 am on the 27th Aug with thomas cook to Las Vegas. Apparentley they have their own staff and are not affected but common sense tells me there will be pickets out and I suspect this may mean problems. If anyone knows the real picture I would be gratefull if you could assist me as we have a lounge booked at the airport and wont be able to acess it if we cant check in plus transport booked at the USA end etc etc.. Thanks in advance
Smifco

smifco
Just read on Thomas Cook Airline thread from MikeBravo that TCX uses Menzies not Swissport.

yes I read that too but if the strike goes ahead there may be secondary picketing of tcx staff and I wonder if there might be a backlog on the tarmac as a lot of flights wont be able to move and may restrict movement of aircraft that may wish to fly. Perhaps Im just being paranoid but weve a ;lot of money at stake so I am quite worried about it all.

flyimg out on thurs 28th with thomson can u tell if the strikes goes ahead will i be affected ?

buster27,

They use Serviceair so you shouldn't be effected directly, but there may be knock-on effects.

there may be secondary picketing of tcx staff

It would be illegal for them to do so unless it was an official balloted strike.

Darren

Buster, there may be delays - I am expecting there may be some on 29th when we fly out of Manchester - but that's about it (hopefully)

The proposed baggage handlers strike action has been called off:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7573714.stm

David

Can anyone tell me how to get from the hilton manchester airport to the airport pub hotel on foot please many thanks in advance..

jamiex,

You need to head for the main road (ringway Road) at the rear of the hotel and follow it down towards the end of the runway. It's on your right. Just head towards the aircraft on approach (if they are using runway 23R at the time) and you can't miss it.

Darren

The strikes are on hold at the moment, talks are going ahead so no no disruptions.

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/Content/swissportstrikeaction

Dazbo5 wrote:

jamiex,

You need to head for the main road (ringway Road) at the rear of the hotel and follow it down towards the end of the runway. It's on your right. Just head towards the aircraft on approach (if they are using runway 23R at the time) and you can't miss it.

Darren

Thanks darren much appreciated

Dont mean to be thick cyberspacekaddette but what is IRIS

IRIS is part of the new techie passport scheme, your Iris pattern is recorded (because eyes are as good as fingerprints and less liable to damage) and certain border points have self service lanes where you can scan yourself into the country. Since the data is held centrally and not on the passport you don't need a new one, you can get your eyes scanned and linked to your existing passport and beat the inevitable queue when you get back to Britain. Well at least that's the theory! The problem is there are only about half a dozen places where you can register, all of them seem to be air side of security so you can only do it whilst leaving the country and the office at Manchester has limited hours and is never open when I travel, even though on two occasions it should have been! The way things are going I'll have a fully functioning new passport before I can get registered!

littlecamel wrote:

Dont mean to be thick cyberspacekaddette but what is IRIS

steve8482 wrote:

your Iris pattern is recorded ..... and certain border points have self service lanes where you can scan yourself into the country ..... beat the inevitable queue when you get back to Britain ..... the office at Manchester has limited hours and is never open when I travel, even though on two occasions it should have been!

When we came back from Tenerife at Easter we queued at Manchester Airport passport control for about 45 minutes it was late evening and we just wanted to go home and get in our own beds. All the time we were standing in the queue, we were watching the odd few people sailing through the IRIS machine, and I swore that next time we travelled we would enrol for IRIS before we went away.
So, on our way out to Crete a few weeks ago we marched straight to the IRIS office and found it closed, even though, according to the notice on the door, it should have been open! I asked an airport worker if anyone would be coming back to the office soon and was told that they were probably busy at immigration and would be back whenever they had finished whatever they were doing.
We hung around T2 (where we could see the office) for another hour or so before boarding our flight out, but nobody came back to the office!
Fortunately, when we came home from Crete there was no huge queue at passport control, and we were one of the first ones to get off our plane, so we sailed through anyway, but I still think it's a pretty poor show to have this new technology but not have the staff to enable people to use it!

I am transiting through en route to Singapore in a couple of weeks -can i leave the terminal, (actually, just for a last puff before 13 hours flying!!) without too much hassle?
I have about an hour and a half between flights!

To start, there are three terminals (with T1 being in the middle of 2 and 3 just to confuse!!). You'd better check which you are using in case you've got to transfer. http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/MANInfo/WhichTerminal?mode=browse Depending on this (and the never ending building work) you may have to leave the terminal even if you didn't want to smoke!

hi i fly to paphos in 4 weeks i am looking at the lounges at man airport but cannot decide which one to book
our flight is 08.15 so will be at the airport early morning there will be 4 of us 2 ad 2 child ages 8 and 15 both are girls
can any one advise me on which lounge is the best the escape or servisair
thanks lms

I could be wrong but I think your 8 year old may be too young to be permitted entry to the lounge. I seem to recall having seen age limit info on the Manchester airport website?