The English airport becomes the airline’s tenth UK base

Jet2 has completed its inaugural flight from its new Bristol Airport base, with a connection to Majorca in the Spanish Balearic Islands.

The launch of operations brings 40 leisure, city and ski destinations on sale to locations in the Mediterranean, Canary Islands and Europe from the airport.

One of the airline’s fleet of 74 Boeing 737-800’s was used for the route, with the airport reporting almost all of the nearly 190 seats being taken.

Passengers received a red-carpet welcome at the boarding gate as well as a Spanish guitarist and dancers with travellers also receiving a goodie bag prior to embarking.

Additionally, the first customers to check-in were handed a free holiday to the Costa Brava and the first 20 all received free flight vouchers.

A day earlier, Jet2 resumed all its flying operations from its other UK bases, coming as the Balearic Islands (Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza) and Madeira were added to the Green Travel List for customers from the UK.

Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, said: “This is an incredibly exciting day for Jet2, as we expand our award-winning flights and holidays to our tenth UK base at Bristol Airport. We have been ready to get going for some time now, and last week’s announcement from the Government means that customers can finally enjoy real package holidays and our award-winning customer service from Bristol Airport. We are looking forward to enjoying enormous success at our newest base, and the response to the launch from customers and independent travel agents has been outstanding.”

Graeme Gamble, CEO, Bristol Airport, added: “We know from our customer research there is pent-up demand for air travel in the region. This is a major step forwards for Bristol Airport recovering from the impact of the pandemic with the airline’s base at Bristol creating 200 job opportunities initially and this number increasing as the base grows, providing significant investment and an increase in the choice of destinations and holidays available to customers in the region.”