UK: Birmingham aims to regain transatlantic flights by 2020

Birmingham airport may have to wait until 2020 to regain transatlantic services after Primera cancelled its flights to Newark, Boston and Toronto from the UK gateway this summer. Tom Screen, Birmingham’s acting aviation director, says there might be an "option" for an alternative airline to start a New York service in summer 2019. He says it is "more likely", however, that such connections will come in 2020 when JetBlue is likely to receive deliveries of Airbus A321LRs and WestJet is also expected to be in a position to start a Toronto-Birmingham service. Primera originally announced services from Birmingham to Newark, Boston and Toronto for May 2018, but subsequently cancelled its Boston plan before it was launched. Flights to Newark and Toronto were suspended in June. Screen says Birmingham’s passenger numbers for 2018 will be "slightly down" on those of 2017 as a result of the collapse of UK short-haul carrier Monarch Airlines in October 2017. The airport is forecasting it will handle 12.5m passengers this year compared with just under 13m in 2017.<br/>