Travel & Tourism

One of Manchester’s most luxury hotels is opening a new location at Manchester Airport

Pre-holiday sleepovers are about to get fancy.

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 5th June 2024

Dakota, a luxury hotel in the heart of Manchester, has announced plans to expand with a brand-new location at Manchester Airport.

The beautiful four-star is one of the city’s best hotels, and frequently welcomes celebrity guests who are performing here or visiting.

And now Dakota is preparing to open a brand-new hotel, this time out near Manchester Airport.

A planning application has now been submitted for a property with 154 bedrooms, a bar and brasserie-style grill, and 130 parking spaces with an airport terminal shuttle service.

Dakota Manchester Airport will be the second hotel for the group here in our city, with the other opening on Ducie Street in 2019.

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Artist impressions that have been released show a similar hotel building to the one in town – an imposing, beautiful black building with huge windows, designed by KPP Architects.

The award-winning hospitality group Dakota Hotels hopes to open the Manchester Airport hotel in 2026.

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An executive suite at Dakota Hotel, which has submitted plans for a new location at Manchester Airport
Dakota has submitted plans for a new hotel at Manchester Airport. Credit: Supplied

Andrew Ovenstone, managing director of Dakota Hotels, commented: “This is a significant moment for Dakota Hotels, and this Airport expansion marks an exciting time for our team and guests alike.

“With routes covering four continents of the world and increasing numbers of passengers and flights year on year, Manchester Airport is a fast-growing global gateway to the North.

“We are looking forward to being part of the journey for the 28 million travellers that come through their doors – bringing our unique brand of luxury hospitality to the Airport hotel market.”

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Recently named as a Sunday Times Best Place to Work, Dakota is predicted to generate upwards of 150 jobs for the community across a variety of departments at their Manchester Airport hotel.

It’s also expected the new hotel will boost the local economy with £12m per year.

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Featured image: Supplied

Travel & Tourism

Manchester Airport issues latest travel update as it apologises to all passengers affected by power cut

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant

Manchester Airport has issued an update on today’s travel as it apologises to all the passengers who were affected by the power cut yesterday.

The airport says it expects the travel schedule to “run as usual with no further disruption” today.

It comes after thousands of passengers travelling through Manchester Airport yesterday were hit with major disruption – with all flights cancelled from Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, and severe delays affecting Terminal 3 too.

The disruption was caused by a “significant power cut” in the early hours of yesterday morning, which had a knock-on effect on systems.

Passengers who were meant to travel from T1 or T2 were advised not to go to the airport.

Manchester Airport has issued its travel update to all passengers affected by yesterday’s power cut / Credit: Natali Quijano | Suhyeon Choi (via Unsplash)

All flights from both terminals were cancelled “until further notice”, and while those passengers who had already checked-in for their flights were expected to see be able to travel later in the day, they were told they would likely face delays due to a wide range of backlogged issues airport-wide.

Manchester Airport’s managing director, Chris Woodroofe, continued to keep all affected passengers updated throughout the day.

Now, with the dust settled and the flight chaos of yesterday hopefully a thing of the past, Manchester Airport has issued its latest statement addressing the expected travel schedule for today, and, most-notably, apologising to everyone who experienced disruption of any kind, at at any point, yesterday.

The latest statement on the airport’s website reads: “We would like to apologise to all those affected by the disruption in Terminals 1 and 2 today.

“Today’s schedule is expected to run as usual with no further disruption, so passengers should plan to travel to the airport as normal, checking in two hours ahead of their flight for short-haul, and three hours for long-haul, but it is always advisable to check the status of your flight before you travel to the airport.

“Airlines will be in touch with passengers to rearrange cancelled flights as we work with airlines, their baggage handling agents, and other partners to make sure passengers whose bags did not make it onto their flights are reunited with their belongings as soon as possible.”

The airport also thanked passengers for their “patience” in its latest statement.

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Thanks and appreciation was also shown by the airport to all its staff, airlines, and onsite partners for their “hard work and resilience”.

Featured Image – Albert Bridge (via Pxhere / Geograph)

Travel & Tourism

Coronation Street-themed tram travelling around Greater Manchester officially hits the tracks

Emily Sergeant Emily Sergeant

A special themed tram celebrating the greatest TV soap of all time has officially hit the Metrolink tracks today.

And it’s “the most Manc tram ever” too, apparently.

It’s pretty well-known at this point that Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) constantly gets contacted by Coronation Street fans asking where the TV show’s dedicated tram stop is – which doesn’t actually exist, by the way – and is not helped by the fact there’s a CGI tram in the programme’s titles and a ‘tram stop’ on the soap’s set too.

In fact, after the infamous tram crash in 2010’s 50th Anniversary episode, TfGM had almost 300 queries asking if the trams were still running in Manchester… genuinely.

Over here in the ‘real world’, fans looking to head to the Coronation Street Experience for a special visit of the show’s set will need to hop off at the nearest stop, which is the IWM North, just a short wander away – but as of today (19 June), all that has now changed.

A special Coronation Street-themed tram has officially hit the Metrolink tracks / Credit: ITV Studios

That’s because, in true Corrie style, ITV Studios has proudly revealed what it’s calling “the most Manc transport ever” with the launch of the first-ever ‘Coronation Street Experience’ tram.

The unique homage to the show will meander across the Metrolink network for the next 12 months.

Created using special visuals from Manchester-based agency, Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Insta-trammable’ tram can be seen all dressed-up with gorgeous illustrations from the cobbles to give passengers the change to head to Rochdale through the legendary ‘Rovers doors’, arrive at Kingsway through the Kabin, make their way to the Velopark via Vera and Jack’s infamously-clad ‘No. 9 door’, or rock up at Radcliffe through the entrance to Roys Rolls.

As summer settles on our city, the ITV and TfGM teams also briefly snuck into the ‘real world’ earlier on today to turn the IWM Metrolink stop into ‘Weatherfield North’, especially for the themed tram’s official launch.

It’ll be travelling across Greater Manchester from today for the next 12 months / Credit: TfGM

“We’ve got our very own Weatherfield tram stop, where our characters catch a handy tram ‘into town’, and we’ve even very-occasionally got a virtual tram going past over our bridge, commented John Whiston, who is the MD for Continuing Drama at ITV Studios, as the tram officially hit the region’s tracks today.

“However, we’ve never actually ventured onto Manchester’s Metrolink other than fictionally, so it’s exciting that an actual tram will sport some fine Coronation Street livery.”

Mr Whiston added that the point of the new themed tram is to show visitors just “how easy it is to journey to the Coronation Street Experience on a real tram.”

Urging Mancs and Greater Manchester visitors to “keep an eye out” for the new Corrie-themed tram across the Metrolink network over the next 12 months, Pete Sommers, who is TfGM’s Interim Metrolink Network Director, added: “Metrolink, like Corrie, is an iconic symbol of Greater Manchester that has gone from strength to strength over the years, so we are delighted to be supporting ITV Studios and the Coronation Street Experience.

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“Passengers will also have the chance to board the Corrie-themed tram out on the network over the coming months, so I’d urge people to keep an eye out.”

Featured Image – ITV Studios

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