by Your vacation options vary greatly depending on where you live, new telegraph research shows, with Londoners enjoying more than twice the non-stop flight options as people living in Manchester, Edinburgh and Birmingham.
The study, using data provided by OAG, shows all the destinations you can reach from London compared to the 10 largest regional airports, based on flight schedules for summer 2023 (note that n -some new routes announced for 2024 will change the picture a bit ).
It shows that Londoners have 373 choices (across five airports) for their summer holiday destination, Manchester has 170, Edinburgh has 134, Birmingham has 118, Bristol has 106, Glasgow has 76, Glasgow has 69 Newcastle, Leeds-Bradford has 68, Nottingham has 68. 65, Liverpool has 57 and Belfast 53.
It’s no surprise that London, with four of the country’s five largest airports, is better connected than anywhere else. But the data reveals a fleet of surprising destinations still only served by the capital, and – on the flip side – some unlikely spots accessible from all over the country.
The destinations served by each airport
If you want to visit one of these 16 destinations, you shouldn’t have too much trouble, whether you live in Belfast, Glasgow or the East Midlands: they can be accessed from London and from each of the 10 regional airports covered in the study.
There are three of them on the Spanish mainland (Alicante, Barcelona, Malaga), five on the Spanish islands (Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife), and they are Antalya, Corfu, Faro, Jersey, Kos , Krakow, Malta and Paris those countries. rest of the list.
The data confirms what we already know: that Spain is our absolute favorite holiday destination. In 2019, the last full “normal” year of travel before the pandemic, 18.1 million UK residents traveled there, while France received 10.3 million Britons and Italy 5.1 million.
Destinations you can only reach from London
There are 179 amazing destinations that you can only reach from London airports. Some are expected (especially long-haul destinations like Tokyo and Perth, Australia), but there are others you’d assume you could get to non-stop from at least one regional airport.
Let’s start with European cities. Biarritz, Ljubljana, Tallinn and Vilnius – all great cities, worth a weekend away – can only be reached from London airports. Others that connect exclusively to the capital are Zaragoza, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Dortmund.
For a winter sun island escape, the options are limited when traveling from outside the M25. The Caribbean options of Antigua and St Lucia are only accessible from major London airports, and the same is true for the Indian Ocean ideals of Mauritius and the Maldives.
Across the Atlantic, you can reach New York City, Orlando and Atlanta from London as well as Edinburgh and Manchester, while Washington and Chicago are accessible via London and Edinburgh. But you can’t go to Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin and Seattle directly from London. Virgin is relaunching its Manchester to Vegas route from June 2024.
The destinations are surprisingly well (and badly) connected
Verona (who knew?) has connections to London and all the regional airports in our study except Liverpool. Rome is served by the same number of major regional airports, with fewer connecting to Venice. Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, has connections to eight of the 10 largest regional airports, but only three serve Istanbul.
Want to fly to Bergerac in central France? You are in luck. Six of the regional airports in our study fly to the town (that’s more than the number serving Bordeaux). Other surprises on the list include Poznan (as well as connections to six regional airports), Toulouse (four), Turin (four), Rzeszow (three) and Cluj Napoca (three).
As for the less frequented destinations? Away from London, there are only two regional airports (Edinburgh and Manchester) flying to Vienna, one of the capitals of Europe. Those two regional airports also do not serve Seville, as does Helsinki, and outside the capital, Gibraltar can only be reached via Bristol and Manchester.
The furthest postcodes from an international airport
In England, you are never too far away from an international airport. Live in central London and you have a choice of five people within an hour on public transport. Live in Stoke-on-Trent and you are around an hour away from Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands airports.
One of the corners of the country furthest from an international airport is the Cumbria coast, around Whitehaven, just west of the Lake District. From here the nearest airport is Newcastle, which is around 100 miles and over two hours away by car.
Some parts of Scotland have a special connection with the wider world. The top of Galloway Mill is a good two and a half hour drive from Glasgow Airport. Durness, in the remote north-east of the Highlands, is a similar drive from its nearest airport, Inverness, as is John O’Groats. Grigadale is over four hours from Glasgow and Inverness airports by car.
There is also a tour of the towns along the Welsh coast. But the settlements on the Ard na Murchan peninsula are the most remote for some time. Those living on the remote tip of the Welsh Peninsula are more than two and a half hours from your nearest airport (Liverpool or Manchester) and Aberystwyth airports will take you to Cardiff, Liverpool and Birmingham in around three hours, on good day.
