Aer Lingus is planning to probably end its transatlantic flights out of the United Kingdom, though the airline is taking an unusual approach in announcing this…
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Aer Lingus maybe cuts long haul Manchester flying
In late 2021, Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus commenced transatlantic flying out of Manchester (MAN), including to Bridgetown (BGI), New York (JFK), and Orlando (MCO).
The airline was looking for growth opportunities, and the idea was that Manchester was an underserved transatlantic market on a year-round basis (or something). With Aer Lingus being in the oneworld transatlantic joint venture (without actually being in the oneworld alliance), the airline saw an opportunity there.
For quite some time, there have been rumors that Aer Lingus would be ending long haul service out of Manchester, and that’s now more or less confirmed. Aer Lingus has announced that it has stopped accepting bookings on these routes for travel as of March 31, 2026, as the airline is “currently undergoing a period of uncertainty.” Here’s how this is described:
We are currently undergoing a period of uncertainty on transatlantic services at our Manchester base.
To minimise customer disruption in the event of a closure of the Manchester base, which operates transatlantic flights from Manchester to New York, Orlando and Barbados, Aer Lingus is no longer selling transatlantic flights to/from Manchester for travel from 31 March 2026.
There is no impact on Aer Lingus or Aer Lingus Regional flights between Manchester and Ireland.
As you can see, the airline isn’t going so far as to say that these flights are being axed, but if you stop accepting bookings, that makes it pretty clear that this is the intention.
Why is Aer Lingus maybe ending Manchester flights?
Over the past several months, Aer Lingus has been in contract negotiations with the roughly 200 flight attendants based in Manchester. The company offered a 9% pay increase, but employees are demanding bigger raises and improved conditions, claiming the raises being offered don’t cover the increased cost of living.
We’ve seen Manchester-based flight attendants go on strike for extended periods, and it means that Aer Lingus’ Manchester operations have sort of been a mess in recent times.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, the company has also claimed that the financial performance of Manchester flights “significantly lagged” the performance of flights out of Ireland, including from Dublin (DUB) and Shannon (SNN). Okay, aircraft are resources that have to be maximized, so it’s important to always send them where they can make the most money.
So it’s hard to know what exactly to make of this. It’s one thing to threaten employees with the possibility of essentially closing a base, while it takes matters to the next level to remove the flights from sale, since that has serious financial consequences. Is Aer Lingus serious about this, and actually intending to cancel these flights? Or is this a bargaining technique on management’s part, to basically say “take our deal, or you’ll lose your job?”
Aer Lingus is an IAG company, which isn’t exactly known for its positive approach to labor. Just last year, we saw IAG shift around A321XLR orders, as a bargaining technique with Aer Lingus pilots.
I will say this — if Aer Lingus plans to shutter its Manchester base, doing so with less than three months notice, and ahead of the summer season, seems a little odd. Would Aer Lingus instead launch some last minute routes out of Dublin, or…? You’d think that at least in summer, demand wouldn’t be too bad out of Manchester…
Bottom line
Aer Lingus has stopped accepting bookings on transatlantic flights from Manchester as of late March 2026, meaning the airline may cut flights to Bridgetown, New York, and Orlando. The routes aren’t officially canceled, but instead, the airline is framing it as a period of uncertainty.
This comes as the airline is having labor issues with Manchester flight attendants, who have been on strike in recent times. The airline claims the financial performance of these flights lags those out of Ireland, though who really knows what’s going on here.
What do you make of Aer Lingus potentially cutting Manchester long haul flying?
Second time in 20 years that Aer Lingus has tried and failed with a UK base. They opened a base in Gatwick circa 2007, operating flights to Europe. That didn't last either.
Seems retaliatory against those workers. Not cool.
JFK-MAN was a nice route. Hope someone else fills that gap. Aer Lingus's loss.
Nah those workers were engaging in co-ordinated Sick outs stranding passengers. They got what they asked for
I think it's just IAG reverting to type - without slot restrictions, the UK market is just too difficult for them.
BA only have 3 daily departures from MAN and they only go as far as LHR. Other than some fluctuating VY service, IAG don't have any flights at all from BHX- they can't even sustain an Iberia route to MAD.
Im glad Aer Lingus followed through. The MAN cabin crew were doing coordinated sick outs that cancelled 7 or 10 MAN-JFK flights in late Dec to early Jan. They deserve what they brought. They had been causing problems for a while.
EI cancellations from MAN to the US are still going on according to flightaware
To add, also consider a fall in traffic to the US. It is far too risky going there with a violent sociopath and criminal mob running the country, with innocent people being shot. Trump is concerned about demonstratiors being shot in Iran (and I hope there is a change there), but ignores those being shot in his own back yard.
"never ascribe to rational market dynamics what can be turned into political theater"
Tim, you have to admit, traffic originating in Europe to the US is down. Sure, Americans are still visiting Europe, and some are literally fleeing there. Things are not 'great' here, though. We're basically approaching our own version of The Troubles, between the mass shootings, assassinations, and police murdering citizens. Not 'great,' at all. Bad for business, too.
@1990 , while I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, the USA has never been quite the beacon of human rights, due process, respect for international law etc- their current administration merely stopped pretending to play by rules that its predecessors were regularly ignoring.
Having said that, I don't actively avoid visiting countries with questionable records...but I did travel to the USA in early 2024 and decided I'm not going back anytime soon....
@1990 , while I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, the USA has never been quite the beacon of human rights, due process, respect for international law etc- their current administration merely stopped pretending to play by rules that its predecessors were regularly ignoring.
Having said that, I don't actively avoid visiting countries with questionable records...but I did travel to the USA in early 2024 and decided I'm not going back anytime soon.
Nearly everything- from a room at the Best Western to the food in the supermarket- seemed very pricey, plus there was an expectation to tip even for things like takeaway coffees. And I only was in Texas, not in some super high end location. I did enjoy my visit but it's just way too expensive for the quality of the experience.
It's no wonder that Europeans nowadays prefer to go to basically any other part of the world - even rich countries like Singapore seem to offer visitors much better value.
You've been flying too close to the sun again.
MAN-originating passengers should just fly Delta instead as that is the best airline in the world and far better than EI.
LOL. Unfortunately MAN passengers prefer Virgin so DL gave them their ATL and JFK to operate.
Apparently if an airport doesn't have DL then it has little international service.
It’s a joint venture so it doesn’t matter whose metal it’s on
Gross DL. The Anna Delvey airline
History is repeating itself. Thomas Cook could not make it work also.
Not quite... think you misunderstood the history. Thomas Cook went bust because it was a highly indebted, legacy packaged holiday business that couldn't evolve compete with new model of people booking hotels and flights separately with Expedia, easyjet and Ryanair.
The TATL routes out of MAN were an attempt to diversify from their legacy model, similar to what their Condor subsidiary does well out of Germany. And TC was actually doing OK with it,...
Not quite... think you misunderstood the history. Thomas Cook went bust because it was a highly indebted, legacy packaged holiday business that couldn't evolve compete with new model of people booking hotels and flights separately with Expedia, easyjet and Ryanair.
The TATL routes out of MAN were an attempt to diversify from their legacy model, similar to what their Condor subsidiary does well out of Germany. And TC was actually doing OK with it, before the whole business collapsed. The reason Aer Lingus entered the market was they saw what TC was doing and thought they could try to do it too. Virgin also expanded after TC collapse and took away some of the opportunity
It's pretty much over. The airline is just going through the required notification process and timeline to close it. In the past 8 weeks, the MAN-JFK route has been cancelled more times than it has flown! They blamed it on a broken aircraft, but there has been little attempt to find an alternative. They wet leased from Privilege when it made sense (ie flight was full and UK261 would outweigh costs)
It's a shame... but...
It's pretty much over. The airline is just going through the required notification process and timeline to close it. In the past 8 weeks, the MAN-JFK route has been cancelled more times than it has flown! They blamed it on a broken aircraft, but there has been little attempt to find an alternative. They wet leased from Privilege when it made sense (ie flight was full and UK261 would outweigh costs)
It's a shame... but with limited connections on the US side and the MAN side together with poor brand recognition it was always going to be a struggle. VS makes it work with Virgin Holiday, DL connections and brand recognition.
I hope somebody else picks up MAN because it is lacking TATL capacity that it had 10 years ago. Maybe AA on A321 to PHL or ORD (don't think they have enough connectivity in JFK anymore)
Guess my early March flights won't be affected then. Shame, I was vaguely hoping to be rebooked ex-Heathrow
The reason why MAN has so little international service is precisely the reason why EI can't make it work now = the area just doesn't attract the high fare traffic that airlines need esp. to operate on a year round basis.
Low labor costs can make marginal routes slightly more profitable but it can't change the opportunity cost of using that aircraft elsewhere.
DUB is a hub for EI and can generate levels of...
The reason why MAN has so little international service is precisely the reason why EI can't make it work now = the area just doesn't attract the high fare traffic that airlines need esp. to operate on a year round basis.
Low labor costs can make marginal routes slightly more profitable but it can't change the opportunity cost of using that aircraft elsewhere.
DUB is a hub for EI and can generate levels of traffic that MAN cannot; EI is simply operating most of its MAN flights on a point to point basis.
on a related note, a number of US carriers are complaining to the EU that DUB is becoming impossible for US carriers to add flights to; it was already nearing saturation like LIS but EI's addition of multiple A321NEO flights to the US takes up even more runway and terminal space.
The two issues are related; every airline wants to squeeze out the competition at its hub while maximizing use of assets which means marginal routes go away.
MAN has little International Service??? Not sure you know what you are talking about!
It has 3x daily Emirates, 3x daily Qatar, 2x daily Etihad, daily Gulf Air, daily Kuwait, daily Ethiopian, daily Cathay, daily Singapore, daily Royal Jordanian. Multiple weekly flights on Juneyao, Hainan, Egyptair. Thats before all the European flights.
Clearly MAN can and does generate fill planes and high fares for year round. The challenge is transatlantic. 10 years ago there were...
MAN has little International Service??? Not sure you know what you are talking about!
It has 3x daily Emirates, 3x daily Qatar, 2x daily Etihad, daily Gulf Air, daily Kuwait, daily Ethiopian, daily Cathay, daily Singapore, daily Royal Jordanian. Multiple weekly flights on Juneyao, Hainan, Egyptair. Thats before all the European flights.
Clearly MAN can and does generate fill planes and high fares for year round. The challenge is transatlantic. 10 years ago there were 5-10 daily flights on US airlines. They didn't come back after COVID. Primarily due to DL having Virgin operate its ATL and JFK service, AA retiring 757/767 and not having enough long haul aircraft to operate it and UA having poor branding in the UK.
MAN is an outbound market requiring connections in the US. EI didn't have the branding or connections to make that work.
Never bother with replying to a TD comment, Matt. He's (literally) never wrong, and has nothing to learn because he already knows it all, and now he'll post a 40-page monograph telling you all the errors in your facts by pivoting to Delta and their slots at CDG.
Tim was overall correct. There's a reason that literally every single US carrier has pulled out of Manchester. Demand to the States is low yield trash traffic and US carriers really dont have planes that are configured to make money from lots of low yield traffic where relatively few people are willing to pay for premium products.
Demand to other places on Etihad/Emirates/Qatar etc is there because those carriers can make money from high...
Tim was overall correct. There's a reason that literally every single US carrier has pulled out of Manchester. Demand to the States is low yield trash traffic and US carriers really dont have planes that are configured to make money from lots of low yield traffic where relatively few people are willing to pay for premium products.
Demand to other places on Etihad/Emirates/Qatar etc is there because those carriers can make money from high volume low yield traffic (they have planes that for the most part are primarily economy pack-em-in) with overall lower percentages of seats dedicated to premium space, which MAN doesnt passengers in general do not pay for.
I maybe could get that argument for Emirates--although 3x A380s per day have a LOT of premium seats to fill (so clearly the "trash" you refer do pay). But last time I looked I think Cathay, Singapore, Qatar were all pretty dense premium configurations, probably more so than US aircraft...
Saw a comment on another forum that the same thing has happened at DUS which has lost all TATL traffic despite being a wealthy area...
I maybe could get that argument for Emirates--although 3x A380s per day have a LOT of premium seats to fill (so clearly the "trash" you refer do pay). But last time I looked I think Cathay, Singapore, Qatar were all pretty dense premium configurations, probably more so than US aircraft...
Saw a comment on another forum that the same thing has happened at DUS which has lost all TATL traffic despite being a wealthy area with lots of industrial corporates. "On the other hand, UA will happily fly you to Newark from Santiago de Compostela, where connectivity is so poor that many (most?) business people in the region usually fly from OPO. The joint venture cartels have systematically eliminated transatlantic service to any European destinations that don’t have significant inbound demand from US tourists."
You left out MCO and LAS, but LAS is seasonal for the summer. I have weirdly been on both of those and may wind up on LAS-MAN again in May
You’re oblivious of how big MAN actually is. Multiple daily flights in Qatar, emirates there is gulf, Turkish Egyptair, Singapore, Bangladesh, Cathay Pacific, centrum ( Tashkent ) , Etihad, Ethiopian, hainan, indigo, juneyao( Shanghai ), Norse operates longhauls, Pakistan, royal air Mario, royal Jordanian. Ryanair and easyJet have hubs there.
31 million passengers in 2024 and JFK was 31.4 million.
Royal air Marco not Mario lol
y'all can stop beating the keyboard to tell us about the service the ME airlines offer - which heavily connects MAN to S. Asia.
"The challenge is transatlantic." thank you for distilling the issue, Matt.
THAT is not the type of service that EI offers(offered) from MAN and is not what EI is going to cut
and it is Jason for the win.
@Tim , transatlantic and international are different things. In any event, MAN is far from devoid of transatlantic service - it has two airlines flying to YYZ, a VS with 5 transatlantic destinations and another 6 on TUI, plus the odd scheduled charter on Norse and the KEF route which is mostly about N. America. That's not bad at all considering the population and prosperity levels of NW England.
*a VS base...
of course TATL and int'l are different... in the context of EI flghts from MAN, it should be obvious that the discussion is TATL but I'll get my crayons out next time.
EI had a fairly significant part of the MAN TATL market so it will clearly help the remaining airlines including VS by EI pulling service.
and, according to flightaware, cancellations of EI's flights from MAN are still going on. Kinda destroys the value...
of course TATL and int'l are different... in the context of EI flghts from MAN, it should be obvious that the discussion is TATL but I'll get my crayons out next time.
EI had a fairly significant part of the MAN TATL market so it will clearly help the remaining airlines including VS by EI pulling service.
and, according to flightaware, cancellations of EI's flights from MAN are still going on. Kinda destroys the value of EI's DUB operation if they have to keep rerouting passengers from MAN to DUB to the US
Don't argue with Tim.
1. Tim is never wrong.
2. If Tim is wrong, repeat #1.
I'm looking forward an RDU Dublin direct flight starting in March around the 26. It seems like it's a permanent flight but maybe I'm wrong and it's seasonal