easyJet has revealed it will base an additional aircraft at Glasgow from next summer - taking the airline's fleet at the airport to six. The move comes after the airline operated its biggest-ever summer flying programme in Scotland and flew a record seven million passengers to and from Scotland in its 2023 financial year.
The arrival of a sixth aircraft at its Glasgow base will enable the airline to offer customers even more choice and greater connectivity across the UK, Europe and beyond, as well as creating around 40 local job opportunities at the airport.
With the addition of the sixth aircraft, easyJet expects to have nearly 300 employees based in Glasgow including pilots, cabin crew and base management.
A new greener neo aircraft will join two 156-seat Airbus A319, two 186-seat A320, and one 186-seat A320neo aircraft already serving the airline’s customers in Glasgow. Compared to the current generation of aircraft, the Airbus NEO brings significant environmental benefits and operational efficiencies compared to the previous generation of aircraft, resulting in at least 15% less CO2 emissions and 50% less noise during take-off and landing.
easyJet’s Glasgow network has gone from strength to strength over the last year with new routes including Lisbon and Porto from Glasgow. The airline has already announced new routes for its 2024 financial year to Hurghada, Larnaca and Enfidha which will operate from Glasgow next summer.
Ali Gayward, easyJet UK Country Manager, commented: “We are proud to be Scotland’s largest airline and are delighted to have carried a record seven million customers in our last financial year, offering a fantastic network of 84 routes across four Scottish airports - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Inverness."
“We continue to see opportunity in Scotland which is why we are pleased to be basing an additional aircraft in Glasgow from next summer to offer our customers even more choice, like our new routes to Enfidha and Larnaca, providing more connectivity to popular destinations across the UK, Europe and beyond, all with great value fares and a warm welcome onboard.”
Matt Hazelwood, Chief Commercial Officer at AGS Airports, said: “easyJet’s decision to introduce a sixth based aircraft is a huge endorsement of our continued recovery and testament to a fantastic relationship that stretches back more than 27 years to the airline’s inaugural flight."
“This is a significant investment given that the introduction of a yet another based aircraft brings with it and will support approximately 40 new jobs at Glasgow Airport."
“It has been a bumper year for both airport and airline not only celebrating the 40-million passenger landmark earlier this year, but we also welcomed a number of new routes which are proving popular with our passengers.”