EasyJet is today celebrating twenty years of flying from Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
The budget airline’s first flight landed into Amsterdam from Liverpool on October 27 1997 as Aqua’s Barbie Girl topped the UK singles charts.
Since then, it has carried more than 39 million passengers from Liverpool on over 300,000 flights. Every year, more than 2.3 million passengers fly easyJet from LJLA.
The carrier now has a network of over 28 routes from the airport, where it employs 375 pilots and crew and considers a key base.
EasyJet is set to expand its offering at Liverpool, and is set to introduce an additional Airbus A320 from next summer – its eighth aircraft to be based there. Its latest route is Venice, which starts next Tuesday.
Ali Gayward, easyJet’s UK country manager said: “We’re delighted to be celebrating easyJet’s operation over the past two decades from Liverpool today. Twenty years ago easyJet changed the way Europe travelled. We challenged the high price monopolies of the legacy airlines and enabled a new generation of people of all ages, incomes and interests to enjoy Europe.
“I have to thank our fantastic customers who travel to and from Liverpool for their loyalty and support.
“Although today we’re celebrating 20 years of easyJet in Liverpool, we’re even more excited about the future. We will continue to challenge conventional thinking and we look forward to where the next two decades could take us.”
Paul Winfield, air service development director for Liverpool John Lennon Airport added:
“EasyJet has been instrumental in taking Liverpool from being an airport with just under 700,000 annual passengers when they first arrived in 1997 to five million passengers today.
“It has helped to give passengers from the Liverpool city region and the wider North West and beyond, the opportunity to be able to choose to fly from a convenient, hassle free airport, offering great customer service with value for money air fares.
“The recent decision to base an eighth aircraft here next year, will help to develop our long term partnership further benefiting not just the airport but the local economy too.”