Sex and the City movie boosts Yorkshire-New York sales

When the first ever transatlantic flights to New York from Leeds Bradford were launched this month, it was expected to be popular among Christmas shoppers; now, figures released from Jet2holidays.com show that it is the most popular ever route among female travellers – more than two-thirds of breaks have been snapped up by women.

Soon after news of the New York service was launched on 8 May, the company was flooded with bookings, the vast majority by women, and if the pattern of 72 per cent female bookings continues, it will be the most popular route out of Yorkshire for women passengers.

Mandy Round, General Manager at Jet2holidays.com, said: “We knew this would be a popular route for Christmas shoppers, but we didn’t anticipate it would have such a strong female bias.

“Although there are a lot of couples booking, all-girl groups have proved massively popular, many no doubt inspired by the premiere of the new Sex and the City movie – in fact, already we’ve got one party booking of 12 females.

“New York is shopping heaven, especially with the current strength of the pound against the dollar, and as our flights are timed in the run up to Christmas, we expect that it will be the girls outnumbering the boys two-to-one on our departures.”

The first all-girl group to book a package trip was four friends from Leeds who logged on within a few hours of hearing about the launch. Kate Williams, 26, said: “November can’t come soon enough for us, we are wishing away our summer already!

“None of us has been to New York before so when we heard there were trips available from right on our doorstep, it was credit cards out and straight online.

“And the cards will be back out in November – we’ll be shopping for Yorkshire! It’s going to be a true Sex and the City experience for us, so watch out New York, the Leeds ladies are on their way!”

Jet2holidays.com is offering four-day Christmas shopping breaks direct from Leeds Bradford to Newark airport from just £699pp, including three nights’ hotel accommodation in downtown Manhattan. Travellers can choose from a number of three to five-star hotel options.

Current female-to-male ratio on the four departure days

Thursday 6th November: 71/29
Thursday 13th November: 70/30
Thursday 4th December: 75/25
Thursday 11th December: 72/28

Go to jet2holidays.com for more information and bookings.