easyJet, the UK’s largest airline has revealed the results of an independent survey that proves that easyJet provides companies with significant savings on short-haul travel, and demonstrates that on the majority of journeys easyJet was found to save over £100 per return trip.

easyJet commissioned ITM Research to conduct an independent study using data from actual journeys made by real business travellers. The analysis involved companies across the UK, Germany and other European Markets.

The study was conducted on a random sample of 561 itineraries over a 10 week period within the fourth quarter of 2009, and all travellers worked for global corporations in the financial, business services and consultancy sectors.

The results showed that even allowing for point of sale booking fees and purchase of speedy boarding - in a high majority of instances, easyJet still offered significant cost savings overall on each trip, and yet surprisingly none of the booked itineraries were made with easyJet.

Paul Simmons, easyJet’s UK general manager, said: “Businesses are continuing to waste money with high-fare airlines, but this research shows that easyJet is the best value option. The airline has tailored its products and services for the business traveller, with frequent flights to major business airports. We encourage Travel Procurement Managers to seriously challenge the way they go about lowering travel costs. In short haul air travel a straight business shift will save companies more money than a bloated, time consuming traditional continual tender process ever will – these numbers prove it.”

The research also showed that when it came to UK domestic travel, the frequency of easyJet’s schedules meant that 43% passengers could have saved over £100 even on a domestic trip.

In the current economic climate, travel budgets are coming under increased scrutiny. Our study shows that the best way of managing the company’s business travel is to enforce lowest logical fare policies and book with easyJet whenever possible.