Skyscanner Flight Trends March 2010: London Trumps New York for the Number One Spot

March search figures show London’s continuing popularity amongst North Americans. The capital city held onto the top spot for the second month running, with New York City trailing in second place in the US and third in Canada, according to flight search engine Skyscanner.com.

Although New York failed to take the top spot, US destinations fared well in the popularity stakes amongst Americans with six of the top ten as US destinations, whilst Canadians ranked Las Vegas at number nine but saw Los Angeles knocked out of the top ten for March. Unsurprisingly Canadians ranked Toronto and Vancouver in the top ten, in fifth and sixth positions.

Canadians also showed a bigger appetite than Americans for long haul travel to the UK with Manchester taking the fourth positions, compared to the 11^th position for Americans. Possibly fuelled by St Patricks Day, Dublin jumped up four places to 8th place in the Canadian chart, while the Irish capital remained in the 7th spot for US searches.

Both nations continued their love affair with Paris which took number two spot for Canadians and number six for Americans.

Looking at the entire list of 50 locales, it appears that spring break was also on people's minds in the US when planning their travel; more specifically flights to Mexico or the Caribbean, with Cancun, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Nassau and San Juan all showing up in the data, with the usual favorite Cancun landing prominently at number 13.

Canadians seemed less into these particular spring getaway hotspots, with a preference for travel to more far flung places, with Eastern Europe's big hits repeatedly striking a chord, from Bucharest to Kiev to Warsaw to Budapest.

Skyscanner US Travel Editor, Scot Carlson commented “It is interesting that, to a certain extent, this data may support the stereotype that Americans don’t like to venture too far, while Canadians have a greater appetite for long haul travel. Having said that London has topped the charts for both nationalities, and I have no doubt that the launch of budget airline, Sun Country’s new trans-Atlantic flights to London will have added to the Capital’s popularity amongst Americans.”

March 2010 Top 10 Destinations, USA

1. London

2. New York

3. Las Vegas

4. Los Angeles

5. Dublin

6. Paris

7. Orlando

8. Miami

9. San Francisco

10. Rome

March 2010 Top 10 Destinations, Canada

1. London

2. Paris

3. New York

4. Manchester

5. Toronto

6. Vancouver

7. Dublin

8. Amsterdam

9. Las Vegas

10. Bangkok

Visit Skyscanner.com to search for cheap flights to your favorite destination or to view travel trends for previous months.

Rankings are based on the number of searches for flights during March 2010 on the Skyscanner website for departures out of the US and Canada. Ranking movement is based on change compared to February 2010 Trends