British Airways rediscovers Manchester after 10-Year hiatus

British Airways will start serving a range of vacation destinations from Manchester this summer, its first flights to continental Europe from Britain’s second-biggest urban area in a decade. The airline will link the north English city with Alicante, Malaga and the islands of Ibiza and Mallorca in Spain, as well as Nice in France and the Greek island of Mykonos. The service will use 98-seat Embraer SA E190 jets from BA’s CityFlyer arm. The move shows how Alex Cruz, who took over at BA in April after running Vueling, is exploring options for expanding leisure services even where that means confronting discount specialists such as Ryanair, EasyJet, Jet2 and Monarch Airlines, all of which have operations in Manchester. British Airways will also add 3 more routes from London Stansted, Ryanair’s biggest base. <br/>