MANCHESTER - 5

[chris4567]

some good news for MAN

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...._eyes_ba_slots

GERMANY'S national carrier Lufthansa is targeting Manchester and other regional airports for major growth after British Airways' near withdrawal.

The sale of BA Connect this year to Flybe and more recently GB Airways to easyJet leaves BA with just three destinations from Manchester - Heathrow, Gatwick and New York.

Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa's general manager for the UK, said: "We are seeing strong growth out of Manchester, business travel is going well. Manchester became a big opportunity for us when BA decided to abandon the regions."

Lufthansa carried almost 576,000 passengers to and from Manchester in 2006 - a 13.5 per cent increase on 2005 and setting a new airline record for the second year running...

..."Manchester is our second-largest operation outside London and we are very pleased to be in Manchester.

"More people are using us and our hubs in Frankfurt and Munich as an alternative to Heathrow.

"We are seeing enormous growth here - customers tell us that we offer a better use of their time."

Lufthansa, is the second-largest scheduled airline after bmi in Manchester. It operates 85 flights a week to four destinations - Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf and Hamburg..

More than half of passengers flying out of Manchester transfer to onward connections in the airline's global network. The most popular inward destinations being India and China.

"India is a very big market for us. More than half our UK sales to Mumbai come from Manchester, while we have also seen growth in our routes to Pakistan."

Very interesting and no doubt this will certainly add fuel to the fire that is the debate about BA and Manchester.


i think this should be good.