Low-cost carrier easyJet has stolen a march on its rival Ryanair by launching a new offering aimed at the package holiday market.
easyJetHolidays enables users to create their own holiday on one site by pairing a choice of 10,000 European hotels with the airline’s budget flights. The holidays are protected by the Travel Trust Association and backed by a price promise guarantee.
easyJet chief executive Andy Harrison claimed the new model “confines the traditional European package holiday to the dustbin of history”.
Harrison said: “Package holidays offered through travel agents and tour operators have developed a deserved reputation for everything that is bad about travel – fixed-term holidays in shabby hotels allocated on arrival with flights at the most inconvenient times on some of Europe’s least-known airlines. No wonder they are a thing of the past.
“Today really does mark the end of the European ‘package holiday’ as we knew it.”