A DIRECT daily link from York to New York in the next five years is the ambition of bosses at Leeds/Bradford International Airport (LBIA).

As airport bosses launch their Project America campaign, the search now on to find an operator to take on the transatlantic route, LBIA is also looking to reinstate a direct bus route - scrapped last year - from York to the airport.

Susie Cawood, head of York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the campaign and backed the interest in First York re-establishing its service between York and the airport.

She said: “The links will be good news not just for inward tourism in York but also inward investment in the region. Already we have close links with many US businesses operating successfully here.

“We need to make it easy for others to come here too and we have to ensure that all the building blocks of transport are in place.”

Tony Hallwood, commercial director at LBIA said discussions were underway with the previous operators of the bus route, the First Group.

He said: “Without such a link it would impact on the number of people who visit York.”

A spokesman for the First Group said: “We are always in connection with the airport and in the right economic climate we would look at such at operation.

“The airport link from the city centre was scrapped at the beginning of this year. But we would always keep the door open.”

Project America was launched last week at the airport to a gathering of regional business leaders.

Mr Hallwood said he was confident the airport would attract an American airline to offer the daily flights “by the middle of next decade.”

He said: “Yorkshire is the largest catchment area within the UK which is not served by a transatlantic service. To achieve this ambition we look forward to support from a wide range of business and leisure groups to showcase the strength of our region.

“The USA is by far the most important long haul destination for flights from the UK. It’s vital therefore that we capture this market for both our leisure and business passengers and deliver to the 500,000 passengers who fly transatlantic to and from our region.”