Manchester Airport Celebrates Chinese Singles Day

Due to the growth of popular new routes to China, Manchester Airport has today taken part in Singles Day, the world’s biggest online shopping day.

Singles Day is held every year on 11th November. The day is also referred to as Double Eleven because of its date.

Originally claimed as a celebration for China’s young singletons, Alibaba (a Chinese e-commerce company) then  turned it into a shopping bonanza in 2009.

The date, November 11th (11/11), is chosen because the number “1” resembles an individual that is alone.

Passengers through the UK’s third biggest airport are being treated to £20 off when they spent £300 at World Duty Free.

Manchester Airport launched direct flights to Beijing in June this year, and so far more than 40,000 passengers have used the service.

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With 25m annual passengers Manchester is the only non-London UK airport to have a direct service to Mainland China. It also operates a direct route to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific.

Manchester Airport is only a handful of Western brands to take part in the activity, with the majority just doing so online, by bringing it to the UK to its Chinese passengers is quite unique.

In 2015, in under 10 minutes  of Singles Day launching, Alibaba had more than £1 billion of orders, and within and hour and a half it hit the £4 billion mark. By the end of Singles’ Day the total sales were £9.4 billion, up from £7.4 billion in 2014.

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