Ash UK/US

Thats a pity , I have flown with them a few times, the planes were clean and modern looking and we had really good service with them.

barrylynch

The only scheduled routes now from Manchetser to the USA are Altanta with Delta , Newark with Continental , US Airways to Philliadlphia and Virgin to Orlando.( unless i am missing something)
Actually our in-laws did the orlando flight because of the price and got an internal flight to washington , but its 10hrs from the UK to orlando and of course full of kids.
I flew through Heathrow a couple of times and its not pretty . BA does have a day flight from washington to Heathrow i took on a business trip and that was strange flying through our day and arriving about 10pm at night in the UK.

Jerseygirl

I only mentioned Newark because it is my local airport...of course there are several routes/airlines from other US airports to Manchester.

paul1968mcr

People from Chicago aint that bad.

Giantaxe

Another option is Aer Lingus SFO -> Dublin -> Manchester and elsewhere.

lisag8070

or as we like to call them "Air Fungus"..

lansbury

Doesn't matter how full the flight is, the fare people have paid is what counts. Especially how many premium class seats they can sell at a non discounted price.

As Richard Branson once said the people at the front pay for the people down the back.

The open skies policy and the emergence of new routes and airlines at Heathrow have meant that the premium passengers numbers have declined on US routes out of MAN and the aircraft BMI used at MAN can be relocated to LHR and used on routes where they can produce a bigger and more profitable revenue.

One of the side effects of the deregulation of air fares, if a route only attracts those who will only pay a low fare and therefore the profit margin is very low the route goes.

For those that fly to/from MAN there is the option of going to AMS and connecting to a variety of US flights from there.

barrylynch

Our last visitors went to Paris CDG and connected to Washington DC via Air France, so there are options but they do extend the flight times.

lansbury

You are right when it is a non stop flight. But if you have to connect to another flight inside the USA and can get a non stop from the likes of AMS of CDG it is quite often quicker to do the interchange outside the US than inside.

Giantaxe

And often quicker than changing at Heathrow too. Plus for a US connection, winter weather may be a factor too. Changing in Chicago or the northeast is less preferable than in Amsterdam or Dublin, imo.

barrylynch

The US Airways Philly flight is not too bad , big planes , and a good connection to washington . You just have to pay for everything , drinks , headphones etc...

DeanUK2US

Nah, I think it's because they all have Oasis ringtones!

Englishmum

My friend works for British Airways at Newark. She says that they are currently flying 747 jumbo jets into Newark and are planning to do so for the next few weeks (normally it's the smaller 777s and a 767 which flies into EWR).

The reason for this is that with the economic downturn, their usual business class passengers are now mainly flying in economy class or premium economy (World Traveller and World Traveller Plus). The 747s have more economy class seats than the other types of aircraft and the airline doesn't want to have to give free upgrades to too many passengers, hence temporarily using the 747 jumbos.

Many companies have actually frozen or severely curtailed business travel; my spouse is now based in Singapore and is flying to London and Switzerland on a business trip this weekend. He is flying in economy class (Singapore Airlines doesn't have premium economy) as his company is only permitting essential business travel only and this has to be on the cheapest available fare.

Manc

AA still fly ORD - MAN on a 767

BritishGuy36

I hate BMI with a passion and will never fly with them again after the debacle last time, lost/delayed baggage in both directions, local delays meaning we missed our transatlantic flight and then got lumped on a different flight but not seated together, they booked us on flights that were way later than they needed to and we ended up waiting at heathrow for 4 hours when we could have been on an earlier flight back to manchester with a short wait.

Pile of pants they were.

We usually fly AA through ORD on AA55 but on the occasion above they were booked up.