Manchester Airport woos local long haul customers

Manchester Airport is launching a new national advertising campaign called ‘So Far, Yet So Near’, to try and win back the estimated 1.5m passengers from its catchment area that fly long haul from other airports.

The campaign will focus on destinations in America, the Far East and India and use Geolocation, a first for Manchester Airport, on websites including Skyscanner, onthebeach.co.uk and Expedia.

The airport ran a similar campaign in 2008, but in the last two years the airport says there has been a drop in awareness over long haul routes in its local catchment areas, which includes Cheshire.

Awareness of direct flights to the USA dropped by nine per cent and knowledge of flights to Australia has also decreased, showing a dip of 12 per cent. Awareness about accessibility and connections to cities in the Far East has also decreased.

Andrew Harrison, Manchester Airport’s new managing director, currently starting his first week in the job, said: “I wanted to start with something that’s close to my heart. Last year I said that 50 per cent of travellers from the North wanting to fly to Dubai were driving to London rather than taking flights from Manchester.

“With two daily services, there’s no need to do that anymore and with this campaign we want to win back the one million or so passengers we’re losing from our catchment area and remind them about the range of routes we offer from Manchester.

“We want to continue to grow our long haul offering at Manchester and we will achieve this by increasing the awareness and gain the support of our passengers”

The airport said previous research has shown that people from the North West are frequently travelling to long haul destinations but aren’t aware that Manchester daily serves destinations including New York, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Chicago, Philadelphia and Lahore.

Other destinations like Toronto, Hong Kong, Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Mumbai and Shanghai can be reached by connections from US or European points.

Harrison added: “Research has shown that people are driving, getting the train right passed Manchester to travel to a long haul destinations, this campaign will remind people that you can get almost anywhere in the world from Manchester with direct or one stop services on a daily basis.”

The ‘So Far, Yet So Near’ campaign will run for four weeks and coverage will appear in national publications and on national broadcasters from this week onwards.