Building on the success of its new seasonal bases, easyJet will add two aircraft in Malaga, two in Palma de Mallorca and one in Faro from May next year
The investment will create around 150 direct jobs for pilots and crew under local contracts in both Spain and Portugal
The announcement follows easyJet’s strategy to take advantage of key growth opportunities across its network including at its seasonal bases which have proved successful during the pandemic
As the European aviation market continues to recover, easyJet has today announced it will be expanding its network of seasonal bases by adding five more aircraft across bases Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Faro from May 2022. The investment will create around 120 direct jobs in Spain where the airline currently employs more than 400 people, all under local contracts along with 30 jobs in the Faro base.
As a result, next summer easyJet will have five based aircraft in Malaga where it is the second largest airline, and seven in Palma, bringing the Spanish fleet to 16 aircraft, including four in its base in Barcelona. It will also add an additional aircraft into Portugal at the Faro base. This means the airline will have increased its fleet based in Portugal and Spain by 70% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Adding more capacity to the airline’s bases in Málaga and Palma builds on our successful destination bases in Southern Europe, positioning easyJet as the best option to serve these popular destinations and enabling us to capture a larger slice of peak demand. These new based aircraft will allow easyJet to reinforce existing markets, as well as explore new flows in the future that were previously inaccessible for easyJet providing the airline long term growth in these destinations.
Commenting on the expansion plans, Johan Lundgren, CEO of easyJet, said:
“As easyJet has navigated effectively through the pandemic, the establishment of two new seasonal bases has been an important move. The decision to add five aircraft to these bases is testament to the important role they play in our network now and in the post-pandemic recovery.
“They have provided us with the additional flexibility to capture the most demand on these popular routes. We can now continue growing our presence in these key destinations from next May, demonstrating our confidence in the continued recovery of leisure and beach travel next summer.
“So, in summary, we see so many opportunities for easyJet in this period of recovery across Europe where legacy airlines will retrench and we are ready and able to grab them with both hands.
“We are ideally positioned to take advantage of these strategic growth opportunities with customers choosing us for our trusted brand, unrivalled network and low fares.”
ENDS
For further information, please contact the easyJet Press Office on 01582 525252, log onto www.easyJet.com or follow @easyJet_Press
Notes to editors:
About easyJet
easyJet is Europe’s leading airline offering a unique and winning combination of the best route network connecting Europe's primary airports, with great value fares and friendly service.
easyJet flies on more of Europe’s most popular routes than any other airline and carried more than 96 million passengers in 2019 – more than 16 million travelling for business. The airline has over 300 aircraft on nearly 1000 routes to more than 150 airports across 35 countries. Over 300 million Europeans live within one hour's drive of an easyJet airport.
easyJet aims to be a good corporate citizen, employing people on local contracts in eight countries across Europe in full compliance with national laws and recognising their trade unions. The airline supports a number of local charities and also has a corporate partnership with UNICEF which has raised over £14m for the most vulnerable children since it was established in 2012.
The airline takes sustainability seriously and is the first major airline to operate carbon neutral flights across its whole network. The airline is achieving this goal by offsetting the carbon emissions from the fuel used for all of its flights. The airline sees this as an interim measure until new technology becomes available to de-carbonise aviation. In the meantime, easyJet will continue to support innovative technology, operate efficiently and aim to fill most of its seats. Since 2000, we have improved our carbon emission per passenger kilometre efficiency by over one third and we have a target to reach a 38% reduction by 2022.
Innovation is in easyJet’s DNA – from our launch over 25 years ago when we changed the way people fly to the present day where we lead the industry in digital, web, engineering and operational innovations to make travel more easy and affordable for our passengers.
The airline was named as Britain’s Most Admired Company of 2020 in the transport sector, retaining the leading position for a second year running. Britain's Most Admired Companies study is the longest-running annual survey of corporate reputation in the UK.
