Manchester Airport’s Managing Director, Karen Smart, has stepped down from her role “to explore new career opportunities” following weeks of travel chaos at the northern gateway.
The airport has suffered delays for weeks, with hours-long queues for security causing some passengers to miss their flights according to a report in the BBC earlier this week. One passenger reported the queue for security started in the drop-off car park, while another reported on twitter that the lack of ground crew available meant passengers were left stuck on aircraft while waiting to disembark.
At the end of March the airport announced the phased reopening of its Terminal Three and plans to operate both runways as travel recovery continues. However, having made some of its staff redundant during the pandemic the airport has been struggling to recruit and train staff to meet demand. Like many airports Manchester is having to scale up quickly having operated with minimal staff during the pandemic. Smart had previously apologised to customers who had experienced disruption, saying, “Getting back to full strength is going to take time and there will unfortunately be periods over the next few weeks when it will take longer to get through the airport than it should.”
Disgruntled passengers have blamed management for a lack of planning, while Manchester Mayor Andy Barnham was due to meet airport bosses to discuss the situation on Tuesday 5 April.
Having worked with MAG for eight years, Karen had been in her current role for two years having moved over to Manchester in 2020 from East Midlands Airport where she had also served as Managing Director. Since joining the northern hub she had navigated the airport through a tricky two years amid the impact of COVID-19.
Commenting on her departure, Charlie Cornish, Chief Executive of MAG said: “Over the last two years Karen has guided Manchester Airport through the most challenging period of its 84-year history, having made a major contribution to MAG throughout her time with the business.
I am sorry to lose Karen after her years of valuable service, but also understand her desire to return to the south for family reasons and indeed to explore new career opportunities.”
Ian Costigan, MAG’s Group Transformation Director, will take over as interim Managing Director at Manchester and will be tasked with overseeing the recruitment needed to increase operational capacity over the summer.
In February, Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which owns and operates Manchester, as well as London Stansted and East Midlands, served 2.4m passengers – the equivalent to 62% of pre-pandemic traffic and the airport group’s highest proportion since the pandemic began. With passenger traffic forecast to ramp up over the Easter period, airports across the UK are set to face ongoing challenges amid staff shortages.
Severe delays and flight cancellations have also been reported at other airports across the UK over the weekend after easyJet and British Airways cancelled flights blaming the disruption on IT issues and staffing shortages due to COVID-19.
