UK leisure carrier Thomas Cook Airlines is to add additional flight capacity from London Stansted Airport in its summer 2014 schedule after agreeing to base two Airbus A321s at the Essex airport from June 2014. The additional aircraft capacity will enable it to introduce eight new holiday destinations from the facility and boost frequencies across a number of its existing routes.

The replacement of its existing A320 with larger A321 equipment with additional range enables new routes to be opened to Corfu, Fuerteventura, Heraklion, Izmir, Kefalonia, Kos, Rhodes and - brand new to Stansted – Skiathos. An increase in flights to some of Thomas Cook’s most popular resorts will further boost the options for holidaymakers from the East and South East of England.

“Our growing partnership with London Stansted is great news for those holidaymakers in the East and South East of England looking for an airline and airport closer to home to help them travel to more destinations,” explained Rob Thompson, director of planning, Thomas Cook Airlines. “We believe that this area of the country is currently underserved with respect of airport departures to holiday destinations and that demand exists to make our partnership with the airport a continued success.”

From June 2014, Thomas Cook Airlines will serve 18 destinations from London Stansted Airport, with over 150,000 passengers each year flying with the airline from the airport. “Today’s announcement by Thomas Cook is excellent news for Stansted and our passengers and another significant step on the road to providing more choice to more destinations from the airport than ever before,” said Andrew Harrison, managing director, Stansted Airport.

“This new agreement with Thomas Cook demonstrates their confidence in M.A.G to deliver great value and quality service at Stansted. There is huge demand for air travel in our catchment area, and we know people prefer to fly from their local airport when possible, so this fantastic news is a real positive development in providing more choice and more flights to even more destinations for passengers in London and the eastern region,” he added.