American’t: Why is it so difficult to fly to the US from Manchester?

The love affair with America seems to be over

The US remains a relatively popular destination for Brits, but options to fly there from Manchester are limited to a single scheduled airline and a thrice-weekly charter service. It’s a destination that shouldn’t be that difficult to get to, and yet it is. What’s the reason for this, and was it ever that much better?

Goodbye Aer Lingus

It might seem a little odd, but Ireland’s national carrier currently flies direct from Manchester (which is not in Ireland) to New York and Orlando.

However, passengers due to fly on Aer Lingus were told in January 2026 that they should look for alternative flights. Their flights, at that point, had not been cancelled. It was a strange situation for fliers: get your money back, or hold out in case your plane did take off. A month later, the airline fully cancelled flights after March 2026. Their reasoning is that the flights are “underperforming”. Reports from fliers suggest that planes were busy.

(The cancelled Aer Lingus flights are the long-haul US-bound ones. Short-hauls to Dublin remains active).

A colleague who was due to start their honeymoon with a flight to New York managed to get their money back and then booked a replacement flight for less. Others are not so lucky. Virgin have now increased the prices on its direct Summer flights to Orlando. This is what happens when there’s minimal competition.

If you think it’s slightly odd that Aer Lingus flew direct to New York from Manchester, what’s even stranger is that Singapore Airlines used to fly to Houston direct from Manchester. More on this below.

A graveyard of attempts

I’ve been flying to the US from MAN since the late nineties, and in that time, a lot has happened.

We’ve had periods of famine punctuated by occasional feasts. I recall flying a Delta 767 to New York that was half empty. Comfortable United flights on a 757 direct to Newark. Both carriers stopped flying to MAN many years ago.

American Airlines had a long stint flying to Manchester. The planes were old, but the service was decent. Their NYC flight ceased in 2018, and they withdrew completely from Manchester with the closure of their direct Philadelphia flight in 2020.

British Airways used to fly to the US from Manchester. This feels like a very long time ago, and it’s now rare to see BA flying internationally from anywhere other than its London airports. Back in the early 2000s, a 767 would do a daily flight to New York, and there were seasonal flights to Florida.

At its peak, BA accounted for over 10% of the passengers travelling through MAN. The flights to NYC stopped almost twenty years ago, in 2008. Now BA make up a fraction of the flights and passenger numbers at the airport. Which is probably why they get treated so badly.

Jet2 even used to run seasonal flights to New York from Manchester, but these stopped in 2018.

One of the most unique US flights was for a Singapore Airlines direct flight from Manchester to Houston. Five times a week, the inbound flight from Singapore to Manchester would refuel and then head out to Texas. It would then follow the same route in reverse on the way back. The flights started in 2016 and ended in April 2025, a surprisingly long run.

How much better was it eight years ago?

Back in 2018 there were seven airlines flying direct from Manchester to the US.

It was, according to MAN itself, the sixth largest airport in Europe for passengers travelling to the US. It claimed 1.7m passengers departed or arrived on US-bound flights in 2017, covering thirteen US cities.

From March, there will be just four US cities with direct flights to Manchester, served by a shrinking number of airlines.

Current North American flights from Manchester.

At the time of writing, there are two daily flights to New York (JFK). Aer Lingus will cease in March, leaving just Virgin on that route. Virgin also flies once a day to Orlando, seasonally to Las Vegas and daily to Atlanta, which is a Delta hub and good for connections.

Aer Lingus also fly to Boston, although that route will cease in March. TUI fly to Orlando twice or thrice a week throughout most of the year, with some off-season gaps.

Post-March, this leaves one scheduled airline flying to the US. We will enter a period of the lowest number of direct flights ever. That’s astonishing given that Manchester, as a city, has grown significantly, both in size, and importance.

There is an irony that MAG, the parent company of Manchester Airport, and a company that’s a third owned by the councils in Manchester, operate airport lounges in 13 US cities.

Why has this happened?

One big reason is that demand is being driven down by factors like politics and price. The US certainly feels different today, but back at the peak of flight options in 2018, that was a year into Trump’s first presidency.

The US has become increasingly expensive, partly due to a weak exchange rate and partly due to rising prices within the country. Each trip we take over there seems to cost much more, and the standard of accommodation we stay in is often reduced to stay under budget. We’ve stayed in some questionable hotels for $200 a night in second and third-tier cities.

When you look at the load factors for flights from London to the US, the feedback from fliers is mixed, leaning towards low occupancy. Some report busy cabins, others say that there’s plenty of empty seats. Our last US trip from Heathrow was a great flight to Seattle and back via Portland, and that was a busy flight, but that in mid-2025.

A friend runs a travel agency that specialises in mid to high-end holidays. They have, so far this year, booked zero US trips for their customers, and that represents a significant reduction versus the previous year. Customer demand is up for their services but everyone is looking East and not West.

Looking at the UK government’s official numbers, which itself comes from Amadeus, the volume of passengers coming to or from the US in 2025 was comparable to 2024. That is skewed by an exceptional January, where traffic was up 19% versus 2024. Other months were mixed, with some showing marginal increases in 2025, and others significant decreases. June 2025 shows 24% lower traffic numbers versus 2024.

What about other UK cities?

At the time of writing, there are four different US carriers flying from New York to Edinburgh this Summer: Delta, United, American Airlines and JetBlue.

The flights take off barely an hour apart. The planes vary: a 767 widebody from Delta, a 757 from United and an A320 and A321neo from JetBlue and American. The schedule reduces in the Winter, but United keeps its daily flight, and Delta flies four times per week.

United even fly another daily flight from NYC to Glasgow, which is less than an hour away from Edinburgh.

Delta and JetBlue fly from Boston to Edinburgh, although both flights cease in the Winter. Virgin flies in the Summer direct from Edinburgh to Orlando four times a week.

Newcastle used to have a direct flight to New York, but United ceased that service back in 2016. It flew almost daily (six times per week), but ultimately it stopped due to passenger numbers.

Jet2 did offer seasonal flights to New York from Leeds Bradford but that stopped. American Airlines also had a daily direct flight from Birmingham to New York, which launched in 2015 but ceased a year later. United also flew from Birmingham to Newark, but that stopped in 2017.

Which UK airports can you fly direct to the US?

The table below lists the total number of US Direct Flights, which is the number of unique airlines and destinations at any point during the year, as referenced on the airport’s website. For MAN, I have excluded Aer Lingus, as they will be ceasing flights in just over a month.

Does any of this really matter?

Yes and no. You can fly to London Heathrow and then connect to twenty-two US cities with BA. Or one of three cities in Canada, or two in Mexico. Their US network is slowly growing, and I wrote an article on all BA’s North American routes. St Louis launches in April 2026.

Direct flights save you time. That one hour in the air, to or from London, is a lot longer when you add in the mandatory 90-minute gap between the inbound or outbound connecting flight. Depending on timing, that gap may be much longer. One of my biggest frustrations is that the limited US daytime flights to London get in too late for a connecting flight back to Manchester.

Direct flights highlight a city’s importance. Manchester has grown significantly since I first arrived here, and it is (arguably) England’s second city, yet the ability to get to the US is now the worst it has ever been.

It shouldn’t be this way.

Why won’t Manchester work? Airlines pick and stick with routes that make them money.

That’s partly down to the desire of passengers to fly to that destination, but also the costs associated with flying to an airport. Those costs can be split into the airline’s own costs, which are the plane, the pilots and the staff, and then the costs that the airports charge for the airline to fly there.

Or in some cases, the money the airport is willing to pay the airline for that route.

It’s not uncommon for airlines to get perks if they fly to a city: zero fees, or even cash paid to the airline. There’s no indication of whether Manchester subsidised any routes. Given how budget-orientated they are, the likelihood is low.

What would change this?

The introduction of the Airbus A321-XLR allows airlines to fly across the world with a smaller, single-aisle plane. It’s shorter and cheaper to run than the old 757 (which United used to fly to Manchester), meaning that less-popular routes could now be profitable. American Airlines uses this plane on their flight to Edinburgh. JetBlue also fly it to Edinburgh and London.

It’s possible that a US carrier could run direct flights to Manchester and make the numbers work with a smaller plane.

Could Norse launch transatlantic from MAN?

Norse has just started a direct flight from Manchester to Bangkok, operating weekly until March 2026. The airline already flies from London to a number of US cities, and its CEO has said that its Manchester base could expand to other cities.

JetBlue

Could JetBlue fly to Manchester from New York or Boston? Their smaller A321s would work for this market, but the seatmap is premium-heavy with 24 of their Mint suites taking up over half of the plane’s footprint. Manchester is not a premium-heavy airport, although Emirates, Qatar, Etihad and Singapore have decent business cabins and have been flying from MAN for a while.

Who is to blame for this?

It’s easy to blame the airport, especially when it comes to Manchester. Their “award-winning” Terminal 2 consistently rates as one of the worst in the UK, usually only beaten to the bottom spot by its other terminals. If sopmething can go wrong at an airport, Manchester will find a way to make it happen. It’s more likely than not that they mismanaged their airline relationships, penny-pinched on marketing, and let these US routes die on the vine.

You can’t, however, not put some of the blame on the cost of a trip to the US. It’s gone up and up over the years, squeezing budgets to a point where it’s simply not possible. Brexit played a part in the currency slide, whilst the tragedies, unrest and polarising politics on the other side of the pond will turn many people off.

That may well change in the future, but for the time being, travelling in the opposite direction is becoming easier, cheaper and more favourable. Fights to the Middle East are plentiful, and then connecting on to Japan, Singapore, China, and India are easy. That’s to name but a few of the destinations that are warm, cheap, and reachable. And many of them don’t even need a connecting flight.