easyJet Joins aether: Manchester's Private Terminal Opens Up to Low-Cost Flyers

If you have ever flown out of Manchester Airport on a busy morning, you will know the feeling. The security queue snaking back on itself, the scrum for a table in the food court, that low-level dread before you have even reached your gate. So the news that just landed caught my eye: aether, Manchester's private terminal, has added easyJet to its list of airlines that support the full checked-baggage service.

On paper it sounds niche. In practice, it is a bigger deal than it looks - because easyJet is the second-largest airline at Manchester, and this quietly opens up a genuinely premium airport experience to a huge chunk of leisure travellers who would never normally get near one.

If you missed it the first time round, aether is a standalone private terminal on the southwest edge of Manchester Airport, over by the Runway Visitor Park on Wilmslow Old Road. It reopened in November 2024 in the shell of the old PremiAir terminal, and the pitch is simple: you never set foot in the main terminals at all.

You arrive at your own building, check in privately, clear your own security and passport control, relax in the lounge with a multi-course menu put together by Manchester chef Adam Reid, and then get chauffeured across the airfield to your aircraft in a BMW. It is the kind of "private jet" treatment that is normally locked behind a first-class long-haul ticket - except here it is open to anyone, regardless of airline or cabin.

The current Inclusive package is priced from £199 per person, covering the dining, the private security and passport control, and the chauffeur transfer to or from your gate. You need to pre-book at least 48 hours ahead.

Here is the important nuance. aether has always been usable with any airline if you are travelling with hand baggage only - that bit never required a partnership. What airlines have to sign up for is the checked baggage service, where aether staff take your hold luggage and hand it over to the airline on your behalf without you needing to trek to the main terminal.

Until now, that checked-bag list was mostly premium long-haul carriers: British Airways, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, Turkish, SAS and a handful of others. easyJet joining is the first time a genuine low-cost, high-volume carrier has properly slotted in. Aer Lingus, KLM and Air France were also added recently, so the list is clearly widening beyond the business-class crowd.

In plain terms: if you are flying easyJet from Manchester with a hold bag, you can now do the whole thing through aether without ever touching Terminal 2.

I will be upfront - I have not been through aether myself yet, so I am going off the facts and the reviews rather than personal experience. But I find this genuinely interesting for reasons that go beyond the terminal itself.

For years, the unspoken rule of airport luxury was that it followed your ticket. Fly business or first, and the fast lanes, lounges and chauffeurs appeared. Fly easyJet, and you queued with everyone else. aether breaks that link entirely. The experience is decoupled from the fare - you buy the nice morning separately, whoever you are flying with.

Whether that is worth £199 is a very personal maths problem. If you are a family of four, that is £796 before you have bought a single flight, which is a hard sell for a two-hour hop to Alicante. But for a solo traveller facing a brutal 6am departure, a big work trip where you want to arrive calm, or a proper special occasion, I can absolutely see the appeal. It is the difference between starting your holiday stressed and starting it with a glass of something and a runway view.

Here is the bit the points-and-miles brain in me can't ignore. Because aether syncs with any airline on a cabin-baggage-only basis, and because easyJet (along with Jet2, TUI and Ryanair) offers a "twilight check-in" / bag-drop service at Manchester the night before, there is a neat little hack.

You can drop your hold bag off the evening before your flight through the main terminal, then rock up to aether the next morning travelling "hand baggage only" as far as aether is concerned - which is the cheaper way in. It is a bit of faff and involves an extra trip to the airport, but if you are staying at an airport hotel anyway, it is close to free money.

This is really the latest step in a slow expansion I have been tracking. aether went from a small clutch of premium airlines to a much broader list over the past year, and adding the airport's second-biggest carrier is a statement of intent. It also arrives at an interesting moment for easyJet, which has confirmed it is launching a proper loyalty scheme in early 2027 - so the airline is clearly thinking harder about how its frequent flyers are treated on the ground, not just in the air.

If you do fly from Manchester regularly and lounges are more your speed than a full private terminal, it is worth knowing your other options too. I keep a full rundown of every lounge, its amenities and access rules over on Airport Lounge List, and you can check exactly which cards or memberships get you in using the Lounge Access Finder. And if it is the queues you are trying to dodge rather than the seating, Flight Queue is handy for gauging how bad security is likely to be before you set off.

You should not read this as "easyJet is going upmarket" - the fares and the onboard experience are exactly as they were. What has changed is that one of the UK's best private terminal experiences is now fully open to easyJet's Manchester passengers, checked bags and all. Whether you splash out for the full £199 Inclusive experience, use the cabin-bag twilight hack, or simply file it away for a special trip, it is a nice option to have in the back pocket.

For me, the real headline is the principle: premium airport treatment is increasingly something you can just buy, no status or business-class ticket required. And on a wet Tuesday morning at Manchester, that might be worth more than any lounge pass.

Planning to use those Avios for your next trip out of Manchester instead? My Award Travel Finder tool can help you track down award seats, and if you are weighing up a cash fare, the BA Avios earning calculator shows what you would earn along the way.