Madrid becomes 17th easyJet base

Andy Harrison, easyJet’s Chief Executive, today officially opens easyJet’s 17th base at Madrid’s Barajas airport. The airline expects to carry over two million passengers from Madrid in 2007 on 18 routes - three domestic, thirteen European and two to North Africa.

Four brand new Airbus A319 aircraft will be permanently based at Madrid Airport, the largest airport on the Iberian Peninsula, from February. The initial investment of 170 million Euros will create 150 jobs for pilots and cabin crew at easyJet.

Spain is one of easyJet’s fastest growing markets. Last year easyJet launched 13 new routes to and from Spain and the airline has already announced a further 13 routes to and from Spain to be opened this year. Currently easyJet offers 79 routes from 12 Spanish airports and Spain now accounts for 29% of the total easyJet route network.

Due to the additional traffic, easyJet’s ground handling partner Swissport-Menzies hired an additional fifty full-time employees, while maintenance provider SR Technics has opened a new Line Maintenance Station at Madrid Airport which initially employs ten people. In addition to new jobs at the airport, easyJet’s two million passengers will help create 2000 jobs in the Madrid area in business and tourism. easyJet’s order of 315 brand-new Airbus aircraft (including options) also safeguards the 2000 jobs at Airbus Spain.

At a press conference in Madrid today, Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of easyJet, said:

“easyJet offers its passengers very low fares – with care and convenience; a combination that no other airline can match. We believe Spanish air passengers have had to put up with high fares and poor service for too long. We aim to change this.

“This year we will carry over nine million passengers from and to Spain, two million of which will fly through our base in Madrid.

“easyJet brings four million tourists to Spain every year – more than any other low fares airline. These four million tourists spend € 3.3 billion in Spain.”

In 2006, 8.4 million passengers flew with easyJet on routes to and from Spain – a 15% increase compared to 2005, when the airline carried 7.3 million passengers in Spain. This year, easyJet expects to carry over nine million passengers, which would constitute a further growth of around 15%.