Airport News
British Airways accused of London bias
Tue, 28 Oct, 2008
British Airways (BA) has been accused of neglecting its regional customers in favour of hubs such as London Heathrow Airport and London Gatwick Airport.
Simon Calder, travel editor for the Independent, said that the carrier has effectively become 'London Airways' after cutting the last route from Manchester Airport to a foreign destination, New York.
This means that although regional customers can get BA flights from their own hubs, they will all go to London where passengers must then get connections.
Mr Calder said this is unfair, but a BA spokesperson denied that it was acting in a biased manner.
"We are fully committed to Manchester, giving customers in the north of England access to our worldwide networks at Heathrow and Gatwick with around 200 connecting flights a week," the unnamed source said.
Manchester Airport is one of the UK's biggest regional hubs, dealing with over 22.7 million passengers a year flying to 225 destinations.
Officials predict that this will rise to 50 million over the next 20 years