A MAJOR airline is pulling all its transatlantic flights from Manchester Airport and cutting around 140 jobs.

Bmi, which is Britain's second biggest carrier, will stop its services to Chicago, Las Vegas and the Caribbean from January and April next year respectively.

The news comes as a blow to the airport just a week after the final British Airways transatlantic flight to New York took off. In a letter to staff, bmi chief executive Nigel Turner said Manchester 'cannot deliver the levels of premium business that are available from the London market'.

He said passengers flying from Manchester were 'buying purely on price' leading to disappointing revenues for the airline's 'best-in-class product'.

The two Airbus A330 planes which are used on the routes will now operate on flights to Cairo and Amman from Heathrow. Mr Turner said: "To meet the clear demand for existing and future growth from London, we will transfer our two Manchester-based Airbus A330 wide-bodied aircraft to London, Heathrow. Consequently services from Manchester to Chicago will terminate on January 14, and services to Las Vegas, Barbados and Antigua will terminate after Easter 2009.

Job cuts

"We have been operating long haul services from Manchester since 2001, primarily as a result of our inability at that time to serve the USA from our main base at Heathrow.

"However, long haul services from Manchester has never performed to the levels that we had hoped and we see little prospect of change or improvements in their performance."

Up to 140 Manchester Airport-based jobs will be cut, mostly cabin crew, onboard chefs, supervisors and cabin service managers, as well as ground crew. Many will be offered positions at Heathrow.

Staff are being informed today, with managers flying to its US bases to explain the decision. German airline Lufthansa took control of bmi (formerly British Midland) last week, adding to its 30 per cent stake by buying bmi chairman Sir Michael Bishop's 50 per cent stake in the airline for around £318 million.

Bmi has 4,300 employees and last year had a turnover of £1,023m. The long haul services from Manchester began in 2001. They operate daily to Chicago, three times a week to Las Vegas, twice a week to Barbados and once a week to Antigua.

A spokesman from Manchester Airports Group, said: "We are obviously disappointed with the news from bmi but as we are all aware, the aviation market is shrinking as a result of the global economic climate and Manchester Airport is not immune.

Anticipated

"We fully anticipated today's announcement. We do, however, need to put this in context. The destinations affected by bmi's decision are already served by other airlines at Manchester Airport so passengers wanting to travel to those are still able to do so with the exception of Antigua, that is a once-a-week additional leg on from Barbados.

 "Manchester Airport still serves 52 long-haul destinations and 218 destinations worldwide. We've also had some good news this week with the arrival of a new airline, Air Sylhet, at Manchester Airport, operating services to Dubai and an additional four new destinations in India through Brussels Airlines."

The final BA Manchester to New York flight took off on October 25. It was the firm's last remaining direct international service from an airport outside London. The only flights BA now offers from regional British airports are shuttle services to Heathrow and Gatwick. A BA spokesman said the 44-year-old service to JFK Airport had been axed due to falling passenger numbers as a result of increased competition from other transatlantic carriers. US airlines Delta and Continental still operate transatlantic services from Manchester.