Bristol at a glance
Bristol is the main airport for the South West and South Wales, and almost every flight from it is short or medium haul. easyJet is by far the biggest airline there and says it now flies around 91 routes to 27 countries from Bristol. Ryanair, TUI and Jet2 fly holiday and city routes too, KLM flies to Amsterdam and Aer Lingus flies to Dublin.
What Bristol doesn't have is long-haul. There are no direct flights to the USA, the Caribbean, the Middle East or Asia. The airport has said it wants to add New York, Orlando, Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi as part of its expansion plans, but for now those are ambitions, not routes.
We checked routes in October 2026. Airlines add and drop routes every season, and many holiday routes only run in summer, so check the airline or the airport's own destinations page before you plan around one. Flight times below are typical and vary a little with the wind.
Beach holidays (mostly summer)
This is where Bristol is strongest. easyJet, Ryanair, TUI and Jet2 between them cover nearly every big Mediterranean beach destination:
- Spain and the Balearics: Majorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Alicante, Málaga and Reus for the Costa Dorada. About 2 to 2.5 hours.
- Greece: Crete, Corfu, Rhodes, Kos and Zante. About 3.5 to 4 hours.
- Turkey: Antalya and Dalaman. About 4 hours.
- Portugal: Faro for the Algarve. About 2.5 hours.
- Cyprus and Malta: Paphos (about 4.5 hours) and Malta (about 3 hours).
- Tunisia: new for 2026, TUI flies to Enfidha for Hammamet, from 3 May.
Most of the Greek and Turkish routes run from spring to October only. Our beach holidays page compares the best beach destinations by month.
Winter sun
If you want warmth between November and March, Bristol's best options are:
- [Tenerife](/destinations/tenerife), Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura: about 4 to 4.5 hours, and the warmest choice in Europe in winter, at around 20 to 22°C in February. See where is hot in Europe in February.
- [Marrakech](/destinations/marrakech): about 3.5 hours, warm and sunny days but cold nights.
- Egypt: Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh for Red Sea diving and guaranteed heat, about 5 to 5.5 hours.
- [Cape Verde](/destinations/cape-verde): TUI has flown to Sal, and easyJet started its own Sal flights in May 2026, three times a week. About 6 hours.
Málaga and Faro run year-round too and are the shortest flights to mild winter weather, though at around 17°C they're mild rather than hot.
City breaks
Bristol is a good airport for a long weekend away. Routes that run most of the year include:
- [Amsterdam](/destinations/amsterdam): KLM and easyJet, about 1 hour 15 minutes. KLM also connects onwards to its worldwide network from Schiphol.
- [Krakow](/destinations/krakow): easyJet and Ryanair, daily, about 2 hours 20 minutes.
- [Prague](/destinations/prague): easyJet several times a week, with other airlines adding flights in some seasons. About 2 hours.
- [Lisbon](/destinations/lisbon): easyJet, daily. About 2.5 hours.
- [Porto](/destinations/porto): easyJet and Ryanair, about 2 hours 10 minutes.
- [Rome](/destinations/rome): easyJet to Fiumicino, about 2 hours 35 minutes.
- [Berlin](/destinations/berlin): easyJet, a few times a week, about 2 hours.
- [Copenhagen](/destinations/copenhagen): easyJet and Ryanair, a couple of times a week.
- [Barcelona](/destinations/barcelona): easyJet, about 2 hours.
New for 2026: easyJet starts Seville, Budapest (from 17 November) and Strasbourg (from 20 November, twice weekly, handy for its Christmas market). Ryanair adds Bari and brings back Warsaw, twice weekly from 26 October. Jet2 is flying to Cologne for the Christmas markets from 16 November to 23 December.
Our city breaks page has more ideas, and the best places for a 3-day city break compares them by how much you can fit into a long weekend.
Skiing
easyJet flies daily to Geneva, about 1 hour 45 minutes, which is the gateway to the French and Swiss Alps. Chamonix is around an hour and a quarter's drive from Geneva airport, and transfers to the big French resorts of the Tarentaise take two to three hours. Geneva flights get busy and expensive at February half term, so book early.
Long-haul from Bristol
Since there are no long-haul routes, the easiest ways to get further afield from Bristol are:
- Fly to Amsterdam with KLM and connect to its long-haul flights, which saves the trip to Heathrow. Your bags can usually be checked all the way through.
- Fly to Dublin with Aer Lingus. Dublin has US pre-clearance, so you go through American immigration before you leave and land in the US as a domestic passenger.
- Travel to Heathrow. National Express coaches run direct from Bristol, and it's about two and a half hours by road. It's often worth it for the biggest choice of direct flights.
Which is best depends on the fare and how you feel about changing planes. For Orlando or New York, a connection via Dublin is often the smoothest.
Getting to Bristol Airport
The airport is on the A38 about eight miles south-west of the city centre, with no rail link. The Airport Flyer A1 bus runs to Bristol Temple Meads station and the bus station around the clock, every 8 minutes or so at the busiest times. It takes about 25 minutes in normal traffic, longer in the rush hour. Fares change, so check the operator's website.
If you're driving, pre-booking parking is almost always cheaper than turning up. And for early-morning flights in the school holidays, leave extra time, because that's when the first wave of departures all hit security at once.
Choosing where to go from Bristol
With so many routes, the hard part is choosing. A good way to start is with what's at its best when you're going: each month page lists the destinations at their peak, and most of the short-haul ones have a Bristol flight.
If you're deciding as a family or group, put the Bristol options you all like on a shared list and let everyone vote with points. That's how somewhere🎉 works, and it means no one has to win the argument.