Manchester Airport opened at Ringway in June 1938, a proud municipal project of the city council. During World War II, RAF Ringway served as the home of the No. 1 Parachute Training School, where tens of thousands of Allied paratroopers earned their wings. Civil aviation resumed after the war and Manchester grew steadily into the leading airport of northern England, developing transatlantic links and a huge holiday charter market while remaining under local public ownership, a rarity among major airports.
The airport's defining modern moment was the construction of Runway 2, opened in 2001 after protests in the late 1990s that became one of Britain's most famous environmental standoffs. It made Manchester the only UK airport besides Heathrow with two full-length runways.
Manchester Airports Group, majority-owned by the ten Greater Manchester councils, has since poured over a billion pounds into transforming Terminal 2 into the airport's centerpiece, completed in 2025. Long-haul growth has been striking, from Emirates A380s to direct flights to China and the Gulf, cementing Manchester's claim to be the global gateway of the North of England and a genuine long-haul alternative to London.