Flight departures from UK airports during the Easter weekend are expected to reach 78 per cent of pre-Covid peaks. Some 9,212 planes will leave the nation's airports compared to 11,743 during the holiday period in 2019, it has been revealed.
Research from aviation analysts Cirium showed that demand for travel was surging ahead with around 1.63 million flights seats sold for the holiday weekend. Busiest day is set to be Good Friday with almost 2.500 services scheduled to take off from the UK - more than 1,000 more than the 1,363 flights that operated last year and a massive 800 per cent more than the 984 flights in 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic.
Low-cost airline easyJet is set to operate the most services during the forthcoming Easter weekend with 1,952 departures, followed by British Airways with 1,648, and Ryanair with 1,588. Most popular route should be London Heathrow to New York JFK, followed by Heathrow to Dublin and Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, easyJet has re-opened seasonal bases in Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, and Faro 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 per cent and 115 per cent compared to 2021 capacity levels.
Javier Gandara, easyJet Country Director Southern Europe, said: "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."
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