Manchester Airport aims to capture catchment area

Manchester Airport has launched a new campaign to claw back four million passengers that travel to London airports to fly.

Its ‘Fly Manchester’ campaign is aimed at highlighting routes that operate from the northern airport and its connections to other destinations.

Direct routes from Manchester include Dubai, New York, Chicago, Doha and Singapore with Moscow, Cairo and Krakow amongst those to be added this summer.

Today’s launch is part of a year-long campaign.

“Manchester’s route network is bigger than Heathrow’s – with over 200 destinations on offer here, versus around 180 from Heathrow,” said Ken O’Toole, chief commercial officer at Manchester Airport Group (MAG). “The Fly Manchester campaign recognises it is absurd that people from the North should fly from London when they could do so from Manchester, much closer to where they live.”

There are 22 million people in the airport’s catchment area stretching from Scotland to Birmingham and Wales.

By Amanda Greenwood, 11 February 2013, Monday 4:32 PM