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One of the world's biggest airlines has revealed there is "potential" for the firm to launch flights direct from Liverpool Airport to the United States, while also revealing the possibility of expanding its current connections to and from Manchester.

A United Airlines chief said the economic impact of Brexit would be a factor in any decision to expand its offering in the North West , but that it was a "logical next step" after having .

Patrick Quayle, who is the firm's Vice President International Network, spoke to BusinessLive as the third largest airline in the world made a raft of announcements.

United has been serving Manchester for more than 20 years, and offers daily non-stop year-round services to its New York/Newark hub, with flights timed to connect with its network of onward connections to destinations throughout the Americas.

Mr Quayle said: "We are always looking for expansion, but the way we are trying to expand is to up-gauge - by adding a bigger aircraft - to the route, which is what we've done, and elongate the season by flying it longer.

"We already fly year-round to Manchester, so the next logical thing was to up-gauge.

"If that works - and we are seeing how it is working right now - then we are looking at everything with the British economy in terms of Brexit.

"So we are trying to wait and see, and grow in a mature fashion.

"You can remember the days when Continental [which eventually merged with United] had a lot of services to a lot of smaller cities in the º£½ÇÊÓƵ, so we are always looking at it.

"We just have to have the right aircraft and the right economics to be able to serve the smaller cities in Northern England. That's a long way of saying there's potential [for more flights to serve Manchester and Liverpool]."

He pointed to the airline's announcement last year, when it boosted the number of business and economy seats available on its daily flights from Manchester to New York by introducing a larger wide-body Boeing 767-400.

He added: "England is very important to us. We go out in a mature fashion, and if something's doing well on a smaller aircraft, we will elongate the season.

"That's what we've done with our services between Washington and Lisbon. The next natural thing would be to do that route year round on a bigger scale, a bigger aircraft.

"With Manchester, we were flying a [smaller] 757 and we said 'this is doing okay, let's add more business class, more economy class', and so we did it by putting it in a larger aircraft. 

"The next logical step in that would be adding it to another city."  

There are currently no non-stop services between Liverpool and the United States, with the vast majority of flights to Europe.

A spokeswoman for Liverpool Airport said it did not have a comment at this time.

Mr Quayle was speaking as United made various announcements about its worldwide services at a media event in Chicago, Illinois, including adding a sixth daily flight to the route connecting New York and London Heathrow - taking daily departures to the English airport from all its US hubs to 18.

That included pledging $40m in its mission to decarbonize commercial air travel - announcing a new investment vehicle focussing on accelerating development of sustainable aviation fuels. 

Earlier this year, the carrier said it would buy up to 10m gallons of sustainable fuel over the next two years.

United also said it was to team up with the new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker film, meaning themed content onboard aircraft, a new paint design and pre-takeoff safety video.

A further announcement was a new partnership with hotel chain Marriott, offering a free bag delivery service for business class customers travelling into London from New York, meaning they are delivered direct to the passenger's room. 

Finally, the airline giant announced it was to extend its partnership with Apple to "transform the airport experience". Linda Jojo, the firm's executive vice president, was "deliberately vague" on the details, but said it "may result in different configurations at the airport lobby".