UK low-fare leisure carrier Jet2.com has confirmed it will place a fifth aircraft at Glasgow International Airport from summer 2014 introducing over 130,000 additional seats into the market and bringing its total capacity at the Scottish airport to 650,000 seats. The expansion follows an 86 per cent year-on-year rise in bookings at its tour operator business Jet2holidays.

In just two and a half years of flying from Glasgow Airport, the airline has trebled the number of routes now available to passengers and this year alone five new city and sun destinations have been added – Corfu, Fuerteventura, Reus and Zante – plus a new discovery charter route to Boston. The arrival of the fifth aircraft will facilitate increased frequency on Jet2.com’s most popular routes to Alicante, Palma and Tenerife.

“The past two and a half years have been extremely exciting for Glasgow Airport, during which time we have enjoyed a steady increase in passenger numbers. Jet2.com has played a huge role in this sustained period of growth, cementing its position as one of our most popular airlines,” said Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport.

“Jet2.com joined Glasgow Airport at what was a difficult time for the industry but it showed tremendous commitment to, and confidence in the West of Scotland market and we now find ourselves in the position where Glasgow is its largest Scottish base,” she added.

The expansion at Glasgow follows just weeks after the carrier revealed growth at its youngest base, East Midlands, with the introduction from late May 2014 of weekly flights to Fuerteventura, Jersey, Kos and Reus. This followed the recent additions of Budapest, Paris, Prague, Madeira and Zante to its operations at the airport boosting its capacity for summer 2014 to over 650,000 seats across a network of nine destinations.

This growth will be achieved by the arrival of a fifth aircraft next year which will also enable frequencies to be increased on existing routes, including popular services to Spain, most notably Tenerife in the Canary Islands and Palma in the Balearic Islands. In total Jet2.com will operate 150 flights a week from East Midlands during the peak season next year, more than doubling its operations in the space of just two years.

Now into its fourth year of flying from the East Midlands, the airline has grown its route network by 77 per cent since its launch. “East Midlands is an important base for us and the launch of these four fantastic new routes today, on top of the six new destinations we’ve added since this spring, shows our commitment to giving our local customers an unrivalled choice of city, sun and ski holidays,” said Heapy.

Jet2.com Boosts UK Regions

Jet2.com this year celebrated the tenth anniversary of its formation, a period during which it has played a major role in driving change within the UK travel business. The airline, a subsidiary of Dart Group and a sister entity to cargo operator Channel Express, was formed to support growing demand for low-cost air travel from the UK regions. Initially launching services from Leeds Bradford International Airport in February 2013 it has mainly focused on northern markets and now also has bases at Belfast, Blackpool, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle.

With the formation of sister company Jet2holidays it has since re-engineered the package holiday process by offering a low-cost holiday option to passengers, packaging its own scheduled seat capacity with hotel offerings to provide a full Inclusive Tour product with offerings highly competitive with its larger rivals thanks to its low-cost business structure.

In our analysis below, based upon schedule data from OAG Analyser, we look at the airline’s network growth from the UK and its main departure points across the country, ranked by overall capacity during the period. This data shows that Manchester could soon replace its Leeds Bradford Airport headquarters as its largest home departure point, while East Midlands, its newest base, is already the fifth largest UK departure point for Jet2.com services and 2014 network growth could see it overtake Newcastle next year. The addition of a fifth aircraft in Glasgow will also see its position change.

From offering just 248,074 seats from Leeds Bradford in 2003, it is this year due to offer over three million seats from ten destinations across the UK for only the second time in its history. The 3,089,073 seats on offer this year is a record for the carrier and represents an 11.5 per cent capacity increase on 2012.

SCHEDULED JET2.COM SEAT CAPACITY FROM THE UK (non-stop annual departures)