easyJet new Italian base..

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Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

..Is Malpensa.

easyJet, Europe's leading low-cost airline today announced it would significantly expand its services in Italy and introduce a new base at Milan's Malpensa Airport. Malpensa will be the airline's 16th base in Europe and first in Italy.

Three aircraft, brand new Airbus A319's, will be based at the airport offering a choice of five new routes to key European airports: Athens, London Gatwick, Madrid, Malaga and Paris (Charles De Gaulle). These routes are in addition to the current Berlin service and the daily flight to Dortmund which commences on 30 October.

The first two of these new aircraft will begin operation from Milan Malpensa from 27 March 2006. The third aircraft will be introduced in the summer and will provide the capacity to operate even more routes.

With a total of seven routes available from Milan Malpensa, easyJet expects to carry around 1.2 million passengers through the base in the first 12 months, and create over 100 jobs locally for cabin crew and flight deck as well as generate over 1000 indirect jobs at the airport.

easyJet currently operates to nine key Italian airports (Cagliari, Milan Malpensa, Milan Linate, Naples, Olbia, Pisa, Rome, Turin, and Venice), with a choice of 29 routes and 68 daily flights. The airline recognises the great potential for further expansion of it low-cost services; Italy has been the fastest growing market in easyJet's network in the last 12 months, experiencing an increase in capacity of 78%. This summer the airline welcomed the six millionth passenger on its Italian routes and by the end of 2005 expects to have carried a total of 2.5 million passengers to and from Italy.

The two existing routes from Milan Linate to London Gatwick and Paris Orly will also continue, generating a total of over 1.3 million passengers travelling on easyJet's Milan services in the first 12 months of operation. easyJet has chosen Milan as the next market for significant development in Italy as a result of its great attraction to both business and leisure travellers as a destination, as well as tapping into the capital city and wealthy Lombardy region's outbound market potential.

easyJet are committed to continuing with its strategy of being a pan-European airline, not only is the airline the fourth largest scheduled carrier in Europe, but 27% of its network is outside of the UK, with six of its 16 bases being situated on the continent.

Seats will be on sale at www.easyjet.com from Saturday 15 October.

Start dates and fares:

The twice daily service from London Gatwick to Milan Malpensa commences on 1 December 2005, with fares from £26.99 one way (£61.32 return including taxes).

The daily services from Milan Malpensa to Paris, Madrid and Malaga commences on 27 March 2006, with fares from €30.99 one way (€65.98 return including taxes for Paris and €61.98 return to Madrid and Malaga.

The daily services from Milan Malpensa to Athens commences on 28 March 2006, with fares from €30.99 one way (€73.98 return inc taxes).

Great news for MXP, quite surprised, MXP isnt the traditional loco airport in Milan, normally BGY.

Original post

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 4,213

Hope we get a BFS route to there. Would be a nice addition to current network! Not much else easyjet can fly to from Belfast apart from northern Italy and eastern Europe!

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 692

Good news. Been to MXP, a wonderful airport, so it's good to see easyJet there.

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

another EZY destination at LGW - excellent

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 4,887

Why no flight to/from AMS.

Better question, why has AMS lost a lot of EZ routes. Of the European routes only Basel and Geneva are left. Is AMS to expensive? Are the taxying times too long. A new low cost pier is being build right now (H pier) so that should help them out.

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

MXP v strange indeed, they currently only fly to LIN I think. MXP is miles from the city centre and an AZ stronghold with no LoCos at all.

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

EZY aren't stupid and do their research carefully so wouldn't make such a big decision without thought

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

and EZY have scaled back the operations to Amsterdam as indeed it is a bit expensive - still they still have lots of flights from UK each day

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 1,887

MXP v strange indeed, they currently only fly to LIN I think..

They presetly fly MXP-SXF and start DTM-MXP at the end of this month

an AZ stronghold

Perfect reason to start services there with AZ's weak financial state

Member for

19 years 11 months

Posts: 170

Malpensa is dreadful bland and boring.
The airport is miles away and the roads are a nightmare.
Linate is the only true Milan airport but now with limited access.
Bergamo is much better, similar distance to Malpensa but better for driving to Milan and much quicker.Nice little airport dominated by Ryanair.