Building on the success of these bases, easyJet adds five new aircraft across the three bases, creating around 150 direct jobs for pilots and cabin crew.
Compared to last summer, the airline will operate 11 more routes to key European and UK destinations from the three bases.
easyJet will be reopening its seasonal bases in Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, and Faro on Sunday, 27 March taking off this spring with an expanded fleet, new routes, and additional capacity to boost the tourism activity in these key destinations this summer.
In Portugal, the seasonal base in Faro will operate with four aircraft, one more than last year, with a total capacity of 1.67 million. In Spain, each of the seasonal bases will have two additional aircraft, which brings Malaga’s fleet to five and Palma’s to seven. This enables easyJet to operate with a wider capacity of 1.9 million and 2.8 million seats respectively, which represents an increase of around 150% and 115% compared to 2021 capacity levels.
With the new additions, easyJet has increased its fleet based in the seasonal bases of Portugal and Spain by 70% compared to pre-pandemic levels and helps contributes to local employment, as it creates around 30 positions in Faro, and another 120 between Malaga and Palma. These new employees will join a team of around 550 people in Portugal and 500 in Spain.
easyJet is also expanding its route network from all three seasonal bases to support the connectivity during summer when it expects to be close to 2019 flying levels due to strong leisure demand. Faro goes from 18 to 20 connections, Malaga increases its routes portfolio from 14 to 17 and Palma improves from 21 to 27. This means that in summer 2022, the airline will operate 11 more routes than those offered on its seasonal bases in summer 2021.
Javier Gandara, easyJet Country Director Southern Europe, points out:
"We are prepared for what we believe will be a very strong summer. Faro, Palma, and Malaga have always been some of our customer’s favourite destinations and we have worked through the winter to adjust and improve our offers across our seasonal base network.
“With more capacity and new routes, we are ready to play our role to support the recovery of local tourism, offering our customers affordable and convenient connections to these Spanish and Portuguese destinations from across Europe.
“The seasonal bases model has proved to be successful as it not only allows us to strengthen existing markets and explore new flows that were previously inaccessible but also efficiently contributes to local employment. I am delighted we have been able to continue investing in our seasonal bases, adding more capacity to all of them and enabling the creation of around 150 extra direct jobs across the bases for this summer".
Since easyJet started operations in Portugal, in July 1998, the airline has carried around seven million passengers to and from the country, offering more than 60 routes. The airline currently has 3 bases in Portugal (Lisbon, Porto, and Faro), with 16 based and 18 non-based aircraft and a team of around 550 employees employed under local contracts.
Since easyJet started operations in Spain more than 25 years ago with the first flight between Barcelona and London-Luton in 1996, the airline has carried around 225 million passengers to and from the country offering more than 185 routes. The airline currently has 3 bases in Spain and a team of around 500 employees, a team that will increase this summer with the addition of 150 additional positions.
