bean,

You don't currently have any options for non-stop flights (direct is not strictly non-stop) from Manchester. The only options were with Thomson Airways and Monarch Airlines. Thomson Airways are currently showing as not operating the route for Winter 2011. It's a shame as I flew with them to MBA last year, great flights as always. Your only option for a non-stop flight is with Monarch, but as you've found, they probably aren't operating it either. Your other options are with various scheduled airlines via Heathrow, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt etc, but most of these fly in to Nairobi with connections to Mombassa with Kenya Airways. That might be your only option unfortunately.

Darren

Sorry I can't help with direct flights, but you might consider doing a European connecting flight and then flying to Mombasa. If you can get yourself into Nairobi, Kenya airways flights are approx every 2 hours to Mombasa and the flight only lasts an hour, so might it be possible for you to screw up your courage for this last hop? There should be staggeringly beautiful views if there are no clouds ....

If you can't face the plane, there is an overnight train several days a week, which is an experience in itself. Best information on this is http://www.seat61.com.

Incidentally there have been charter flights with African Safari Club from Basel/Mulhouse to Mombasa in the past which I believe are still current. You could get to Basel/Mulhouse easily directly from Manchester with Swiss - Mon/Wed/Fri direct flights - or take the Eurostar to Paris Nord, walk 800 m to Paris Est and take the TGV to Mulhouse and get either a shuttle bus or a connecting train to Basel and then the airport bus from Basel train station to the airport .... easily doable and not too stressful.

either November flights have not been released as it is next winter's season and we're still in this winter or everyone is pulling out of Mombassa (there have been security issues there). October would be much simpler!!

TUI's Belgian airline http://www.jetfly.com has flights until the end of October from Brussels. You can get there by Eurostar from London (with special price through tickets from any mainline station in GB) and then a 15 minute local train to the airport.

TUI's Dutch airline http://www.arkefly.nl also has current flights (but nothing open in November as yet) from Amsterdam Schiphol. That is also connected to Eurostar at Brussels, just takes a bit longer and you might be able to get direct tickets to Amsterdam (definately from London but not sure whether they ever managed to link add-ons at both ends of the Eurostar journey!)

Eurostar themselves only open reservations a few months in advance (120 days rings a bell).

Condor (Thomas Cook group) fly Frankfurt - Mombassa but again only taking reservations until the begining of November. They will sell with Lufthansa UK-Frankfurt connections in one combined ticket price. Some days they make an additional stop (landing+takeoff) at Kilimanjaro which is probably best avoided in your case! http://www10.condor.com/tcf-eu/index.jsp