I know it doesn't seem fair. We have to pay surcharges from lots of local airports and Gatwick is about a 4 hour journey from us. At least you can actually fly to a good variety of destinations from Manchester. Living in West Wales, we can't fly anywhere long haul unless we travel to birmingham, manchester or gatwick I think we may still be able to get to Mexico from Bristol but I'm not 100% certain.

Try Glasgow, then you'll really find out what's not fair.

The Southern airports are always cheaper than the Northern ones.
I presumed it was because the planes have to fly further to the holiday destinations.

Distance is of course a factor, but when you look at the disparity in fares for a London/Palma flight vs a Glasgow/Palma flight the distance is fairly insignificant. Fuel used during takeoff is significantly greater than that used at cruising altitude so taking out all the factors that are equal we are only talking of fuel used cruising Glasgow/London plus crew costs for that short distance. Multiply the per-person add-on for the Glasgow flight by the number of passengers and what you get is the airline making much greater profit on the Glasgow flight than that of the London flight. The answer is lack of competition and the airlines operating a cosy little cartel where they all charge roughly the same for the same return journey.

Less competition and further to fly.

That annoys me too, I always assumed that it was down to fuel or airport costs, what used to really get on my nerves was when Thomson used to go from Liverpool it was about £50 per person more than going from Manchester, despite being near as dammit the same distance

Not been to Florida/Caribbean, but is Glasgow cheaper than Manchester and London to fly from, due to the plane flying north before it heads across the atlantic? I somehow doubt it

When working out fuel costs all prices are from Gatwick.You pay the extra fuel costs
form Gatwick to your airport of choice.

In theory it should be dearer from London than Manchester seeing as London has a higher cost of living and so everything is dearer.

don;t forget airport taxes.ema is the highest in the uk.

not only is Edinburgh an expensive airport to fly from, you never get the same choice of holidays either