THE head of easyJet’s UK business Neil Slaven has said the airline plans to add more routes serving Glasgow as he predicted the package holiday service it is relaunching would prove popular with customers in Western Scotland.
After easyJet recorded an eight per cent increase in annual revenues to £6.4 billion, Mr Slaven said the company had been pleased with the performance of routes serving Scotland. He noted easyJet had “reinvigorated” its investment in the country recently.
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easyJet is set to increase its capacity in Glasgow significantly under plans announced in August to add a fifth aircraft to its operation at the city’s airport.
The plane will be used to serve a new route linking Glasgow and Birmingham, which easyJet is confident will do well.
“We’ve got that new capacity coming in to Glasgow and that isn’t fully utilised in our schedule yet, so we will announce some further routes to go along with that in due course,” said Mr Slaven.
Describing Scotland as a really important market for Scotland, Mr Slaven said the company had been pleased by the performance of routes serving airports such as Glasgow and Edinburgh in the year to September 30. The load factor on Scottish flights was around 90 per cent.
“The direction of travel in Scotland is certainly one of growth for easyJet,” said Mr Slaven. He added that the company is considering introducing other routes that could serve Scottish airports, without elaborating.
easyJet will relaunch its package holiday business before Christmas as it looks to increase customer numbers following the collapse of major competitor Thomas Cook.
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“There’s a really strong history of demand for package holidays in Scotland, in particular from the West Coast and Glasgow’s always traditionally been the gateway for package holidays,” said Mr Slaven, adding that Edinburgh had become part of that story.
He noted: “We anticipate that demand for Mediterranean flights on our holidays product will be really strong.”
easyJet reported a 26% drop in pre-tax profits to £427 million for the 12 months to September 30, at the upper end of its guidance.
Total revenue per seat fell by 1.8% to £60.81, as the company blamed weaker confidence due to "uncertainty" surrounding Brexit.
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Revenue per seat improved in the second half of the year, partly due to the positive impact of strikes at rivals British Airways and Ryanair.
Passenger numbers rose 8.6% to 96.1 million, with around 7m on flights serving Scotland.
The company will offer 8m seats on flights serving Scottish airports in the current year. This will include routes the airline has said already it plans to launch, such as the services linking Glasgow ith Birmingham and one between the city in the English Midlands and Edinburgh.
easyJet said it would become the world’s first major airline to operate net-zero carbon flights by offsetting the emissions from the fuel it uses.
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