EASYJET is launching five new routes serving Scotland where it plans to create more jobs in an expansion drive that provides a significant vote of confidence in the outlook for the market.
The budget airline will offer flights linking Glasgow with new destinations in Croatia, Turkey and Spain from next year.
It also plans to add routes linking Edinburgh with Gibraltar and Sicily.
easyJet plans to base an additional plane in Edinburgh to help service the new routes taking the total operating out of the city’s airport to nine.
The move will create around 50 jobs for Edinburgh-based flight, cabin and ground crew.
In August easyJet announced plans to base a fifth plane in Glasgow.
easyJet pledges 50 jobs for Glasgow airport
The company said the expansion announced yesterday will help it to deliver long term, sustainable growth in Scotland.
It is making the move months after the Scottish Government scrapped plans to cut air passenger duty amid concern about climate change.
Tourism chiefs hit out at SNP ministers after U-turn on air tax
The move reflects confidence in the outlook for the demand for flights from Scotland to airports serving beach holiday centres and city break destinations.
The new routes include summer services linking Glasgow with the resort centres of Pula in Croatia and Dalaman in Turkey and between Edinburgh and the Sicilian coastal town of Catania.
Services between Glasgow and Barcelona and between Edinburgh and Gibraltar will run throughout the year, targeting leisure and business travellers.
UK country manager Ali Gayward said easyJet was confident of getting strong demand for seats on all the services given the success of existing services.
While the outlook for the economy has been clouded by uncertainty around Brexit and the prospect of today’s general election, there has been no sign of demand falling.
'Exceptional' discounting fuels rise in Scottish retail sales
Flights serving Scotland have been achieving load factors of around 90 per cent.
“Scottish travellers are demonstrating to us that we need this extra capacity here. It’s a very strong market for us,” said Ms Gayward.
She said the last thing people tend to give up in an economic downturn is their annual beach holiday and second city break.
“The whole Brexit piece has taken longer than anyone anticipated but we’ve seen very much that people are carrying on as normal,” she noted.
easyJet is confident of getting quite a high volume of inbound customers on the Barcelona and Gibraltar services, given the number of expats living in the areas they serve.
The Catania service could benefit from strong links between Scotland and Italy.
“Because of the very high calibre of universities across Scotland we see a large number of students coming in from Spain as well as some other European markets to study here,” added Ms Gayward.
easyJet reckons demand for services from Scotland will be supported by the company’s recent decision to relaunch its holiday business. This followed the collapse of big competitor Thomas Cook.
However, Ms Gayward said the routes announced yesterday were in planning well before the demise of Thomas Cook. The planning cycle takes around 18 months.
easyJet has planes based in European centres that could be used to develop new services to Scotland.
Loganair links up with Flybe to boost demand for routes serving Scottish airports
The new plane based in Glasgow may be used on the service linking the city with Birmingham that easyJet will launch next year. The company announced plans for the service in August.
Paul White, head of Aviation at Glasgow Airport, said the four new routes from the city confirmed easyJet’s strong commitment to the facility and its passengers.
Edinburgh airport chief executive Gordon Dewar welcomed yesterday’s announcement as a sign of confidence. Noting that Gibraltar provides both leisure and business opportunities, he said Sicily had been a long sought after destination for the airport.
Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland, said: “We welcome easyJet’s announcement ... particularly those routes from Barcelona and Gibraltar which will open up great opportunities to draw many more visitors from those captive regions and across the east and south of Spain.”
In September easyJet announced plans to run flights between Edinburgh Birmingham from next year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here