Today marks the delayed start of operations by Jet2 and Jet2holidays from Bristol airport.
The start of operations from the west country airport sees flights depart to Majorca and Menorca as the Balearic islands were added to the government’s green watchlist for overseas travel this week
The UK’s second largest holiday group hopes to attract customers from the south west of England and Wales.
The company has a total of 40 sun, city and ski destinations on sale across the Mediterranean, Canary Islands and continental Europe from Bristol.
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More than 200 new jobs have been created with roles including flight deck and cabin crew, engineers, and ground operations staff.
Chief executive Steve Heapy said: “This is an incredibly exciting day 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 Aarport.
“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.
“That said, we know customers want to travel to more destinations and the UK government still has a long way to go to reopen international travel properly and satisfy customer demand both from Bristol airport and across the UK.
“We continue to urge the government to reopen international travel properly, rather than adding just a few destinations and hoping everyone will be happy with that.”
He added: “We have built up a strong reputation for leading the industry when it comes to looking after customers and we will be doing the same thing at Bristol airport.
“We are making an enormous economic contribution to the region through the creation of more than 200 jobs at the airport, and I know that every single colleague is thrilled about finally getting our operation up and running.”
Station manager Carl Symonds added: “Today has been a long time coming and we are all so pleased to be finally taking customers away on their much-needed holidays.”
More: Jet2.com and Jet2holidays suspend amber destinations to July 18
Jet2.com and Jet2holidays: green list bookings ‘through the roof’