Manchester Airport MD: China delegation shows connecting the North isn't just about travel; it's about opportunity
By Manchester Airport Managing Director Chris Woodroofe
On a Saturday earlier this month, around 45,000 people flew out of Manchester Airport. That’s a lot but it’s pretty normal for this time of year.
Among them were over a thousand people from Yorkshire, a similar number from Merseyside, as well as people from Midlands, the North East and many other parts of the UK.
Again, all pretty normal, but reflective of our role as the UK’s global gateway in North: an airport anyone in the North can call their own, from Bradford to Burnley and Salford to Sheffield.
But there was one group of passengers who really summed up what we mean when we say we are proud to connect the North.
It was a delegation of Mayors and representatives from Northern cities and regions, all coming through Manchester Airport as they headed out to showcase the region in China.
That follows a similar mission just a few days earlier to Austin, Texas, where regional Mayors and representatives from Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Tees Valley, the North East Combined Authority and Liverpool City Region went to the South By South West (SXSW) 2025 festival in Austin, Texas, to showcase the North of England as a hub of innovation, collaboration and creativity.
Connecting the North is at the heart of everything we do here. We connect the people of the North to the places they want to go, and we connect the region as a whole to the markets that will help accelerate its growth.
While they were out in China, the Mayoral delegation showcased the region to investors, stimulating opportunities for trade and forging partnerships that will bring growth, jobs and prosperity here to the region.
All of that is made possible by connectivity, and sits at the heart of why helping airports realise their potential has been recognised by this Government as a key enabler of growth.
For example, we know that when a route from Manchester to Beijing was first launched, export values from Manchester Airport to China grew 41% to £1.29bn and enquiries about investment in the area from China doubled in the two years that followed – and it’s missions like this that help drive that.
I’m not about to say that this group wouldn’t have been able to travel to China were it not for Manchester Airport. But we are the only UK airport outside London to offer direct flights to both Shanghai and Beijing and that means this group was able to get to China easily from an airport on their doorsteps.
And that’s something an increasing number of people are now able to do. Since 2023 the number of direct seats to China from Manchester Airport has gone up by almost 250%.
This means those they will be speaking to will not see barriers in the way if they choose to invest in the North. Combined with the vision for a high-speed east-west rail network with Manchester Airport at its heart, they will see a globally competitive economic region – an economy the size of a mid-sized European country.
That’s what connectivity is all about. We’re on a mission here to make connectivity easier and more seamless. That’s why we’re investing £1.3bn in making this airport better, through our decade long transformation programme that concludes this year.
That programme is most visible in our Terminal 2 – where the delegation flew from – with its award-winning architecture and world class facilities. But probably the most important thing about the programme isn’t what it’s doing already but what it will do in future.
Our historic investment will unlock the full potential of our two runways and help increase the number of passengers we serve each year from 30m now to 50m by 2050.
That means we can offer more flights to more places – including places we don’t serve already – and continue to connect the North to the world.
And in turn that means more missions like this can get to more places around the world and build those connections that drive growth – and put money in the pockets of people right here in the North.
That’s why being proud to connect the North isn’t just a line we say – it really matters. It isn’t just about travel, it’s about opportunities.