Leeds Bradford Airport will offer a direct scheduled service to North America by the end of next year, the gateway’s commercial director has claimed.
Speaking to TTG, Tony Hallwood revealed that the airport is holding discussions with one North American carrier and one UK carrier about a possible Toronto service.
He added that talks are also ongoing with several US carriers about flights to New York.
Low-cost carrier Jet2.com briefly operated direct flights from Leeds Bradford to the Big Apple last Christmas, but Mr Hallwood insisted that a scheduled service is now viable.
“We have a large catchment area and our aim is to stop the leakage of traffic across the Pennines to Manchester,” he explained. “We have 2.8 million passengers now and we are confident it will be five million by 2012.”
The airport has already announced that it is adding new services and boosting frequencies to several routes this summer, including Islamabad, Dalaman and Rhodes.
