Manchester Airport celebrated a major milestone by surprising two holidaymakers with free flights to San Francisco.
The airport, the third-largest in the UK, has reached 25 million passengers for the first time in its 78-year history – year-on-year growth of 9.3%.
The 25 millionth passenger was Chris Stenson of Crosby, Liverpool, who was surprised with a pair of return tickets to San Francisco when he checked into his flight to New York on Thursday morning.
He also won access to the airport’s Escape Lounge and security FastTrack passes.
The Thomas Cook flights are the newest route from Manchester and launch in May next year.
As well as announcing San Francisco for 2017, Thomas Cook Airlines has recently launched new routes to Los Angeles, Boston and Tobago from Manchester.
The airport has also announced routes to Phuket, Mauritius, Goa, Tobago, Muscat, San Francisco and Cayo Coco from for the rest of 2016 and summer 2017.
More than 22 million people live within two hours of the northern airport – including Huddersfield holidaymakers, who benefit from a direct rail link.
The airport has released its the 10 most popular holiday destinations over the last year:
- Amsterdam
- Dublin
- Dubai
- Tenerife
- Alicante
- Palma
- Malaga
- Paris
- Orlando
- Faro
Collette Roche, deputy chief executive of Manchester Airport, said: “We are really pleased to have hit this significant milestone and look forward to continuing to grow our passenger numbers.
“At a time when capacity in the south is constrained, we are adding more passengers and routes than ever before. In the last year alone we have launched flights to Houston, Beijing, Boston, to name a few, all of which can only be found at Manchester outside of London.
“This underpins the role we play in the north as the global entry point of the Northern Powerhouse and as an economic provider and job creator.”
Last year the airport announced a 10-year, £1 billion investment plan including a state-of-the-art terminal building created through the expansion of Terminal Two.
The airport is predicting continued growth, with capacity for up to 55m passengers on its two full-length runways.
New long haul routes and increased frequency of flights to short haul destinations have driven passenger growth, as well as enhanced winter flight schedules and the rise of low-cost airlines.
