Long-haul flights to key business destinations in America and the Middle East could be in place at Stansted by next year.
Andrew Harrison, managing director of Stansted Airport, told the News that he envisages securing their first long-haul carrier by 2016.
During March, Mr Harrison will fly to the United States to promote the region to airlines in a bid to secure flights to destinations like New York.
He said: “Our focus is now starting to shift onto some of the carriers we don’t currently have. I am keen to bring in long-haul to destinations that businesses in Cambridge want to use.”
A corporate liaison manager has recently been employed to help approach the airlines, help them understand the potential and secure deals.
The triumph of hope over reality? It's been tried before umpteen times, even after Cambridge became a high-tech centre.
Is there enough business in Cambridge to support this? The rest of the south will use the more comprehensive longhaul offering at Heathrow.
For the first time last year, Thomas Cook Airlines announced some long-haul flights from Stansted – only for the summer – to holiday destinations like Orlando, Las Vegas in the USA and Cancun in Mexico, starting in July.
That's more like it, yes, this makes sense.
“For businesses in the Cambridge area there is always a range of different destinations that they want – but New York is clearly a major one.
“Also in the biotech sector Boston is always talked about, as well as Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
Probably right, a trans-Atlantic carrier
will start, but won't stay very long.
I wonder if London Stansted will change their name to Cambridge Stansted as they seem to have given up marketing the airport for London.
Sounds very FR-ish, "Cambridge-South".
MAG is working very hard for STN. I'd rather have one of the big US carriers tempted to STN than La Compagnie that's for sure, and it'll happen sooner or later. I'd really stop trying to compare willy sizes with STN if I were a LTN fan...it'll become depressing for you, IMO.
Some say harder than for Ringway!