easyJet, Bristol’s largest airline and the largest UK base outside of London, flew more than four million passengers during the course of 2016 – an 11% increase on the previous year, up a third on five years ago.
Two million of easyJet’s passengers were travelling for business. Since easyJet’s operations began out of Bristol in 2002, a massive 45 million passengers have travelled to and from the airport with easyJet.
In 2017 the number of seats on sale will increase by around 6.7% to over 4.86 million with more seats to the most popular destinations in Spain and Portugal than any other airline, and an ever expanding number of destinations available from the airport.
In 2016 the airline launched new routes to Vienna, Basel, Venice, Nantes, Dubrovnik, Gran Canaria and Turin and, this summer, will launch flights to Kefalonia and Pula. Additionally, due to an uplift in demand, it has also increased the frequency of flights to Palma to 15 times a week, flights to Pisa will increase to six times a week and Ibiza to three times a week. easyJet also connects the South West with the rest of the UK with daily multi-frequency flights. It also offers up to 20 flights a day to and from Scotland. Additionally, from the summer of 2017, the airline will position a further aircraft in Bristol, creating new jobs locally.
As well as adding new routes, easyJet now offers direct flights to all the main Canary Islands during winter and keeps the south west well connected to Europe’s key cities like Bilbao, Pisa, Barcelona and Bordeaux which now operate all year-round.