In 1997, easyJet was looking for its second UK base.
The airline had begun operations from Luton Airport in November 1995, but it was looking for a location to serve the North of England. Many people would have expected the now-ubiquitous airline to set up shop at Manchester.
However, the airline chose Liverpool Airport as its next base. On Monday (October 31), the airport marked 25 years of easyJet flights.
READ MORE: Route from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to return after being shut down in pandemic
In that time, easyJet has carried more than 47 million passengers to and from Liverpool. The airline now operates from most airports across the continent and Liverpool's airport is very different from when an easyJet flight first set off.
Liverpool John Lennon Airport's head of PR Robin Tudor was working at the airport when easyJet arrived in 1997. He told the ECHO about the effect the airline has had on Liverpool and its airport over the past 25 years.
Robin said: "I was here at the time. The airport was a very different place when easyJet made the decision to come here.
"So when they started out here in October 1997, the terminal looked completely different and the amount of business out of here is a huge contrast to what it is now.
"To give an idea of the scale, at that time, there were probably about half a million passengers using the airport (each year). Pre-covid and what we'll hopefully be back to shortly, there was about 5 million, so it's a tenfold increase in that space of time.
"There's no doubt that easyJet was the catalyst in that. Up to that time, from a scheduled airline point of view, it was Ryanair to Dublin, Manx Airlines to the Isle of Man and I think it was a British Airways subsidiary running flights between here and Belfast City Airport.
"That was pretty much it, busy flights though they were - there have always been strong links on all three of those destinations and that's why they're still key to us today. But that was it - there was nothing else.
"There were no European destinations in terms of scheduled flights. We did have some charter - there was a company at the time called Direct Holidays and they were at the advent of the direct sell holiday market."
Robin said that easyJet choosing Liverpool allowed the airport to be a major player in the advent of low-cost air travel. He said: " At the time, easyJet only operated out of Luton, so Liverpool was their second UK base. That was a huge coup for the airport.
"Understandably, Manchester is the dominant airport in the North West and I suspect most people, at the time, if they were asked where they thought easyJet would start operations out of London, they probably would have said Manchester.
"They probably chose us for two reasons. One because they'd have complete flexibility on how they operated from here because of the volume of traffic that we had at the time. They could pretty well choose what time of day they could operate their flights. They weren't restricted in terms of slot availability.
"Just as important was the level of service that they would get out of here. The fact that because they're low-cost, they need to get in and get out of the airport very quickly. Their whole business model is around the fact that they only make money when their planes are in the sky and they're taking passengers from A to B.
"If they sit on the ground at bigger airports where there is potential congestion and delay, then that doesn't work for them."
"They could see that Liverpool had access to this huge North West market, but they had all the benefits from an operational point of view. They could come in and we could turn their aircraft around in 30 minutes - they could land, drop off passengers, fill up the next flight and depart, ready to get another rotation."
easyJet's first two destinations from Liverpool were Nice and Amsterdam. Nice, at that time, was not served by an airport in the North West, so the route opened up the South of France to passengers from this region.
Robin believed it was another savvy move. He said: "At the time, I don't think people would've thought Nice would be top of easyJet's shopping list.
"But that was a sign of how good they are as an airline in understanding their market. It was an instant success, Nice as a destination wasn't served by the North West, if I remember rightly, or there were very few flights.
"But there was a lot of demand for it, the South of France was a popular destination for people going on holiday and for people with property down there or those with business connections."
"That was what easyJet were about, they could see what the demand was and how people would respond to that by offering flexibility and ease of access. You could now fly from Liverpool to Nice, rather than from Heathrow with someone like British Airways or Air France, costing you three or four times as much."
Robin added: "easyJet could see the demand was there, people were responding to it, people liked what they had to offer in terms of the price and the product. As a business, we were in the position of thinking 'how can we satisfy that demand?' and give easyJet what they want."
This led to the new £42.5m terminal building, which opened in 2002 and led to the airport being renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport. The airport had moved operations from the art-deco 1930s airport (which is now a Crowne Plaza hotel) into a new terminal building in 1986, but that terminal had become unsuitable to serve the demand brought to the airport by easyJet.
Robin said: "easyJet wanted to grow and expand very quickly, so that's why Peel (the owners of the airport) made the decision to modify and alter very much the existing building and built today's airport pretty much over, above and around the old terminal - the building that was here from the 1980s.
"That structure is still here today, but it's been consumed in a much bigger and better terminal building that we have now. That was the trigger to that, we needed to expand the terminal facilities to give easyJet what they needed and to encourage other airlines to put business through here in the longer term.
"That terminal opened in 2002 - so five years after easyJet first started here. I think they had in excess of 20 destinations flying from here then."
The arrival of easyJet and the new terminal put Liverpool John Lennon at the apex of low-cost air travel, a development which saw significant changes in business models for airports. Low fares and quick turnarounds meant that airlines paid less to use airports, so the airports themselves had to look to retail and car parks for new revenue streams.
The changes at the airport in the early days of easyJet were "hugely exciting", according to Robin. He added: "It was an element of the unknown - particularly as the low-cost model was so new.
"There was a bit of not knowing how well it would go. If you think, at the time, a lot of people might not have been aware of easyJet and what they were all about. It wasn't as if we were bringing in an airline that was well-established, they were quite new. I don't think anyone anticipated the success it would be so quickly as it came.
"I always remember one of the big pluses at the time was the TV series called Airline, which was one of the first fly-on-the-wall documentaries and that was filmed here and at Luton. It was broadcast within a couple of years after they arrived here.
"Before that show came out, there were probably people within our region who didn't know that Liverpool had an airport. It was prime time on ITV and it put us on the map.
"We weren't that well known before that, people knew us for travelling to Ireland and the Isle of Man, so it was exciting to have people having the opportunity to fly from here to a whole diverse range of destinations. We were immensely proud that we were at the forefront of low-cost travel."
Now, 25 years on, easyJet remains Liverpool's largest airline - taking passengers to a wide range of destinations including Alicante, Salzburg, Krakow, Barcelona and its recently reinstated route to Paris Charles de Gaulle.
Not only has the development of the airport offered affordable holidays for people across the region, it has made Liverpool an accessible destination for tourists, opening it up to so many more people, said Robin.
He added: "A lot of destinations we serve bring in a lot of inbound passengers to the visitor economy and football. The accessibility for the city is key, the airport is a key gateway now and can help the City Region win events like Eurovision. Access in and out is really important for the international market."
This is a key point for easyJet themselves. Ali Gayward, the airline's UK manager said: “We’re delighted to be celebrating this landmark anniversary for easyJet’s second ever base, Liverpool. Twenty-five years ago easyJet changed the way people travelled, democratising flying for a new generation to enjoy Europe.
“I have to thank our fantastic customers who travel to and from Liverpool for their loyalty and support.
“Although today we’re celebrating 25 years of easyJet in Liverpool, we’re even more excited about the future. We will continue to challenge conventional thinking and we look forward to where the next 25 could take us.”
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