UK low-fare carrier easyJet has revealed plans to add a third route between the UK and Tel Aviv. The airline, which already flies to the Israeli city from Manchester and London Luton, will start services from London Gatwick Airport from April 1, 2014 with a three times weekly offering.

easyJet started flying to Tel Aviv in November 2009 from London Luton and alongside its UK operation also offers direct flights from Basel, Geneva and Rome. Next year it will increase its flights between Manchester and Tel Aviv from two to three per week between February 17, 2014 and April 28, 2014, while it has also announced a Berlin – Tel Aviv route, its first since the signing of the Open skies agreement between the EU and Israel.

In the past twelve months easyJet has flown more than 330,000 passengers into and out of Tel Aviv, 190,000 of those flew to and from the UK. The airline expects to carry around 50,000 passengers each year on the new Gatwick service, as it increases its flight connectivity between the UK and Israel to 16 weekly flights.

“One of the reasons for launching new flights from London Gatwick is because Tel Aviv’s appeal as a popular leisure destination has been growing. Almost 100,000 passengers travelled from both London Luton and Manchester with easyJet in the past year,” said Hugh Aitken, UK Commercial Manager, easyJet.

Ahead of its latest network growth easyJet has completed a survey to better understand visitors' impressions of Israel. “Our research, in conjunction with the Jewish News, has helped us better understand why passengers choose Tel Aviv and informed us about what they enjoyed about their trip. The most striking finding was the destination’s growing popularity with young travellers who viewed it as a relaxing, beach destination to visit,” said Aitken.

The findings released by the carrier showed that around a third of those being interviewed were making their first ever visit to Israel. Of these first time visitors, 41 per cent were aged 35 or under and 75 per cent were travelling purely for leisure; the rest were on business or a mixture of both.

The most popular activities for travellers were visiting tourist destinations and historic sites (69 per cent), spending time with friends and family (58 per cent), relaxing, visiting beaches (53 per cent) – the most popular option for those aged 35 or under (70 per cent), according to the results.

Other key findings revealed the majority of people visited Israel for a short break of 5.5 days (39 per cent, 57 per cent of people said they had a better impression of Israel following the visit, 78 per cent of participants said they would revisit Israel, while 40 per cent said they had already recommended visiting Israel to a friend with a further 42 per cent saying they would recommend Israel to a friend.

The new easyJet link between London Gatwick and Tel Aviv will see it go head-to-head with Norwegian which plans to introduce its own three times weekly service on the route from April 2014. Although the carrier did not formally reveal its plans to serve the route when it announced the expansion of its London Gatwick base it does have the Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday flights uploaded in the GDS, according to OAG Analyser.

Official data from the UK Civil Aviation Authority for 2012 shows 812,000 passengers flew between the UK and Israel during the year. Air services between the countries are dominated by El Al, but as the table below illustrates, easyJet has taken on a much stronger position over the past year or two. In a market that grew in capacity by five per cent between 2012 and 2013, easyJet’s own capacity rose 46.7 per cent and its share of total seat availability increased 5.8 percentage points to a 20.3% share.