easyJet announces major new expansion into Central/Eastern Europe

easyJet announces major new expansion into Central/Eastern Europe
Hundreds of thousands of passengers in Hungary and Poland will soon be benefiting from amazingly low fares after easyJet today announced that it will be adding a further six routes from the region to its network, and promised more to come.

A total of six new routes, to start with Krakow and Warsaw, are being added to the easyJet network. This will bring to 17 the number of easyJet routes serving Eastern Europe, including seven from Budapest alone. In total, well over 2 million passengers will fly with easyJet to/from the region in the coming 12 months.

The routes announced today continue easyJet’s major expansion into Central/ Eastern Europe. The travelling public in the region has already demonstrated the attractiveness of easyJet with strong bookings seen to date on the services to Budapest and the Slovenian capital Ljubljana as well as easyJet’s long-standing services to Prague.

Single fares will start from an amazing EUR 19 and will be backed by a major advertising campaign amounting to about EUR 1 million in the first few months.

Seats will go on sale in the coming days at http://www.easyJet.com and will start from 31 October 2004.

The new routes to be added are:

Warsaw – London Luton (twice daily)
Krakow – London Luton (once daily)
Krakow – Dortmund (once daily)
Budapest – Newcastle (once daily)
Budapest – Bristol (once daily)
Budapest – Geneva (once daily)
Budapest – London Luton (existing service increased to twice daily)
Ray Webster, easyJet Chief Executive, said:

“It was only two months ago that we started services to Budapest and Ljubljana. We are now ready to continue what we started and commence services on a much bigger scale. New services from Krakow and Warsaw show we’re very serious about expanding in the region and those loyal travelers that have already got used to easyJet’s low fares, great service and great punctuality will be delighted to know that this is just the beginning. There is more to come!”

“These new services will be backed-up by a major advertising campaign in Krakow, Warsaw and Budapest and I know that these services at the amazingly low prices on offer will prove exceptionally popular with all customers who will make us the favourite low-cost airline in the region.

“Over the coming months we will also be working with the Airport company to help reduce costs. Our experience demonstrates that low cost services are only sustainable in the medium and longer term when airports and airlines work together in partnership to dramatically reduce the cost of service provision. This means aligning infrastructure and services with the requirements of the low cost sector, ‘right sizing’ its capacity and working with the ground handling agents to ensure efficient and competitive handling services are available.”

http://www.easyjet.com/EN/news/20040713_01.html