Zoom Airlines announced details of low-cost scheduled flights direct from Manchester to three Canadian cities .

The Manchester service will start operating in May 2005 with flights to Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary at prices starting from £89 one way including taxes to the East Coast and £139 one way to West Coast cities.

Manchester flights will operate twice weekly to Vancouver on Thursdays and Saturdays, twice weekly to Toronto on Mondays and Fridays and weekly to Calgary on Thursdays.

Hugh Boyle, chairman of Zoom Airlines said: “I am delighted to be introducing flights from Manchester, further expanding our service offering for Summer 2005. Introducing an additional UK departure airport was essential to cope with the phenomenal levels of demand for our transatlantic flights.

“We are providing a high quality full-scheduled service at low cost which has proved to be extremely appealing to the travelling public, especially on long haul flights and we endeavour to continue to offer the lowest scheduled airfares across the Atlantic.”

This announcement completes Zoom’s expanded service offering for summer 2005 to meet the unprecedented demand for their low-cost full service scheduled flights. Zoom announced earlier in the month it will be expanding its summer 2005 schedule of flights from Gatwick and Glasgow, now operating low-cost scheduled flights to eight Canadian cities including Montreal.

John Spooner, Managing Director of Manchester Airport, said: “It`s great news that Zoom Airlines will be operating from Manchester next summer. Canada is a terrific destination which is becoming increasingly popular. Zoom Airlines are offering extremely reasonable fares and I`m sure there will be a strong uptake with this new operator.”

From May 2005 Zoom will be operating flights from Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester to Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver.