No-frills airline BMIBaby announced today that it is to launch flights to six destinations from Manchester airport from May.
The airline, which already operates from Cardiff and East Midlands, appears to have ended Manchester's caution about low-cost carriers and is the first of its kind to offer a significant number of cheap flights - up to 50 a week - from the airport.
Ryanair operates from Manchester to Dublin - but recently cut its number of flights from five to three in protest at landing fees.
The arrival of BMIBaby will be seen as a challenge to EasyJet, whose northern hub is at Liverpool's John Lennon airport, where a new terminal has been built to handle booming passenger numbers.
Manchester airport has been bypassed by many northern travellers in search of cheap flights and BMIBaby tacitly acknowledges that it wants to grab some of that business.
"We know that a low-cost airline is something that people in Manchester have been waiting for," said the airline's managing director Tony Davis yesterday. "It means they will no longer have to drive past the airport and travel from further afield to fly at low cost."
BMIBaby is to operate three flights a day to Belfast with fares as low as £12.50 including tax. Daily flights to Cork and three popular Spanish destinations - Alicante, Malaga and Palma are also offered and there will be an additional weekly flight to Murcia.
A search today showed that BMIBaby was offering a flight to Alicante in August for £38 including tax. This compares with £87 plus £10 tax for an easyJet flight to the same destination from Liverpool and £99 for a Monarch Airlines flight from Manchester on the same day.
"Manchester airport already has one of the most comprehensive ranges of airline operators in Europe and the largest range in the UK outside London," said John Spooner, managing director of Manchester airport. "We're extremely pleased to add the BMIBaby brand name to that uniquely wide range. BMIBaby are a very strong player in the 'no frills' sector so, in that regard, they are particularly welcome."
