New planes for Manchester airport

[26th May 2008]

Holiday flights airline XL Airways will offer flights from Manchester airport using the new Boeing 737-900 from 29th May.

The new aircraft will enable XL Airways to increase the number of seats available on flights as the 737-900 has 26 more seats than its predecessor, the 737-800.

Despite its extra capacity, the 737-900 is also said to use 2.5% less fuel per passenger on an average journey than the 737-800, thus reducing the environmental impact.

“XL Airways is proud to be the first UK airline to invest in this new generation of aircraft. XL Airways has been flying out of Manchester for seven years now and, because of its continued growth in popularity, we felt it was the natural home for our new planes,” comments XL Airways CEO, Peter Owen.

The new Boeing 737-900s will be used on flights from Manchester to some of the most popular holiday destinations, including Spain, the Canary Islands and Egypt.

XL Airways started offering flights from Manchester airport in 2001 and now flies more than 750,000 passengers from Manchester every year. The airline is part of XL.com, the UK’s third largest travel company, and was named as the ‘World’s leading charter airline’ in 2007.

As well as charter flights, XL Airways also offers scheduled flights, and now flies to over 50 destinations in Europe, North America, the Caribbean and North Africa from 12 UK airports. Most flights are single-cabin economy, with the addition of XL One Luxury Class on long haul flights to the Caribbean.

Written by: Nick Purdom