Manchester Airport has lifted the lid on its full summer 2026 route schedule, and there’s a lot to get through. Twelve new direct services are launching from the north’s busiest airport, ranging from a coastal resort in southern Italy to the largest city in Pakistan’s north.
The announcement was made on 19 May 2026, and it pulls together a mix of brand-new short-haul leisure routes from the likes of easyJet, Jet2.com and Ryanair alongside two long-haul additions that will widen the airport’s global network.
On the long-haul side, two major capitals join the map:
- Algiers — Algeria’s capital, served by national airline Air Algérie from 14 June, with prices from £263.43pp return.
- Lahore — Pakistan International Airlines is adding Lahore as its second Manchester destination, building on the launch of Islamabad. Flights start from 3 July, with fares from £881.23pp return.
On the short-haul side, there’s a long list of new options for sun-seekers, with several routes already up and running and others launching through May, June and July:
- Bari (easyJet) — southern Italy, from 3 July, fares from £109pp return.
- Montpellier (easyJet) — south of France, launched at the end of March, fares from £79pp return.
- Preveza (easyJet) — gateway to the Greek island of Lefkada, from 24 June, fares from £126pp return.
- Jerez de la Frontera (Jet2.com) — Spain’s Atlantic coast, flights began 12 May, fares from £96pp return.
- La Palma (Jet2.com) — Canary Islands volcanic landscapes, route started in early April, flights from £103pp return.
- Palermo (Jet2.com) — Sicily, started 1 May, fares from £122pp.
- Pula (Jet2.com) — Croatian coast, started 4 May, fares from £104pp.
- Samos (Jet2.com) — Greek island in the eastern Aegean, flights began 1 May, fares from £95pp return.
- Castellon (Ryanair) — Spain’s “Coast of the Orange Trees”, from 1 June, fares from £35pp return.
- Rimini (Ryanair) — Adriatic coast, from 3 June, fares from £34pp return.
Stephen Turner, Chief Commercial Officer at Manchester Airport, said the goal is to give Northern travellers more choice than they’d get anywhere else outside London: “When we say we connect people to places no-one else in the North does, we don’t just mean global cities like New York or Beijing — we mean sun, sea and sand destinations too.”
For drivers, this matters more than just as travel news. New routes — particularly the long-haul ones to Algiers and Lahore — typically generate fresh airport transfer demand. Larger families, more luggage, earlier check-in times, and a different mix of passengers all feed into the kind of work taxi and PHV operators around the North West pick up. Combined with the continuing ramp-up of Manchester’s £1.3bn Terminal 2 transformation, this summer is shaping up to be a busy one for anyone running airport runs in the region.
If you’re a driver looking for an airport transfer operator to work with — or a passenger looking for one to book — it’s worth having a look at DM Airport Transfers: all vehicles, all cities, all airports.
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