/The busiest day for Thomas Cook Airlines

SCHOOLS are now broken up for summer – and Thomas Cook Airlines has just had its busiest day of the year.

Saturday saw more than 20,000 customers jet off on their summer break.

Manchester Airport, the firm’s home, was the busiest of all its airports, with 6,500 Thomas Cook passengers passing through.

The airline flew to 29 destinations on Saturday, with more than 20,000 customers2,000 more than same time last year - took to the skies.

With a combined flying time of 650 hours, a whopping 100,000km will be covered by Thomas Cook Airlines aircraft – the equivalent of flying around the earth more than twice.

As more British holidaymakers return to Eastern Med favourite Turkey this summer, Antalya overtakes Palma as the number one destination on the busiest day.

Thomas Cook Airlines had 172 pilots and 506 cabin crew looking after customers in the air. They served 8,000 James Martin in-flight meals, including 1,000 just for kids, 2,000 gin and tonics and 6,000 teas and coffees.

On arrival in destinations, Thomas Cook Tour Operations had 281 service reps in place greeting package holiday customers.

Andy Thorington, a flight operations director and pilot at Thomas Cook Group Airline said: “Our operations team worked around the clock from our Manchester headquarters on Saturday to manage the programme, together with our teams at airports throughout the UK. Manchester airport was our busiest, with six and a half thousand customers flying to 24 destinations both in Europe and further afield such as the States and Mexico.

“Thomas Cook Airlines is now the largest UK carrier serving Turkey, with almost one in four of our flights going there on Saturday, and 61 per cent of package holiday customers families. Wherever our customers are going, from Cuba to Cancun, or Reus to Rhodes, we are excited to be taking even more customers to have a great time on our busiest day this year.”