easyJet, welcomed the arrival of its 100th aircraft with celebrations at Berlin’s Schoenefeld Airport. The celebrations include a special flight for staff and dignitaries in the brand new aircraft over Berlin…
easyJet, welcomed the arrival of its 100th aircraft with celebrations at Berlin’s Schoenefeld Airport. The celebrations include a special flight for staff and dignitaries in the brand new aircraft over Berlin – the airline’s most rapidly expanding base in the last 12 months.
The airline’s fleet of 100 Boeing 737s and Airbus A319s is larger than any other low cost airline. Last month, easyJet carried 2.6 million passengers on its network, only Lufthansa carried more passengers in Europe, making easyJet bigger than BA, Alitalia, Air France or KLM.
The growth of easyJet since its launch in November 1995 has been phenomenal, starting with only two leased aircraft operating two routes (from London Luton to Edinburgh and Glasgow). The airline now operates around 650 flights every day on 203 routes to 61 key airports throughout Europe and in the last 12 months the airline carried 27 million passengers.
Not only is easyJet the leading low cost airline in the UK operating from 10 bases, but also offers a truly pan-European service with its five bases on the continent: Basel, Berlin, Dortmund, Geneva and Paris Orly directly connecting destinations without touching the UK, which account for 22% of the airline’s total network.
easyJet has led the low cost revolution in the European aviation industry and its success is due to the increasing demand from consumers for reliable, convenient services at low fares for both business and leisure purposes.
Today’s new arrival from Airbus is the 39th A319 to be delivered from easyJet’s order of 120 aircraft to be completed by 2007. An additional 20 A319’s will be delivered in 2005 to facilitate the airline’s continued plans for expansion and increase passenger numbers by a further 15 – 20% this financial year. The airline also has an option for an additional 120 aircraft from 2007 onwards.
Ed Winter, easyJet’s Chief Operating Officer, hosting the celebrations in Berlin today commented;
“Today is an exciting day for easyJet, we now operate more aircraft, offer more flights and last month carried more passengers than any other low cost airline in Europe and have exceeded all but one of the flag carriers.”
“Our success has been phenomenal and by giving more consumers the opportunity to fly to key airports at our famously low fares, the face of European aviation has changed forever – flying is no longer elitist and expensive.
“We believe there is still a great deal of potential throughout Europe for low cost services and easyJet intends to be at the forefront of further market expansion across Europe and will continue to play a key role in bridging Europe”.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
