Ahead of the summer season, easyJet has inaugurated its new seasonal base at Malaga-Costa del Sol airport, which will allow the carrier to better respond to an increase in demand due to different European countries progressively re-opening for tourism. The new base, operational since June 1, adds to those that easyJet already has in Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca and consolidates the company’s presence in Spain, an ever-growing market for the airline.
easyJet will now base a total of 12 aircraft in Spain where it counts on more than 400 employees, all employed under local contracts. easyJet is the 2nd airline in Malaga and, after announcing a new route with Birmingham (from June 29 to October 30), it now offers up to 14 routes to some of the most popular destinations in Europe, such as London, Berlin, Geneva, Paris or Amsterdam, among others.
The opening ceremony started with the traditional arrival of the plane and the ribbon cutting by the largest representatives of the airline and the authorities of the region and continued with the round table “Reinventing tourism“. The debate was attended by Mr. Manuel Pablo Muñoz, Secretary General of Tourism of the Junta de Andalucía; Mr. Francisco Salado, President of the Deputation de Málaga and President of Turismo Costa del Sol; Mr. Francisco de la Torre, Mayor of Malaga; Pedro Bendala, Director of Malaga-Costa del Sol airport, as well as Javier Gándara, General Director of easyJet for southern Europe. Also, D. Teófilo Ruiz, Deputy Delegate of the Government in Malaga, offered a welcome speech prior to the round table.
Javier Gándara, General Director of easyJet for Southern Europe, said:
– With more than 36 million passengers carried since 1999, Malaga was until now the most popular destination of our network where we didn’t have a base. Despite a challenging context for the sector, we believe that opening what will be easyJet’s second Spanish seasonal base in Málaga – and the third in the country – is an opportunity to expand our operations in Spain, where we are the fourth largest airline. With Europe progressively reopening for tourism, we know that there is pent-up demand for travel, and we retain the flexibility to ramp up quickly our operations to meet that demand and a seasonal base provides us with a solution that perfectly fits with the needs of the market, constituting another example of an innovative initiative that makes our business model even more efficient.
The different authorities have also analysed how Malaga, Costa del Sol and Andalusia as a whole can benefit from the new base, which enables this destination to have a better connectivity with the international market, and they have also highlighted the pillars that make this region an attractive tourist destination.
The Secretary General for Tourism, Manuel Muñoz, highlighted that:
– The fact that a company that moves a volume of travellers as high as easyJet, has opened a new base in Andalusia in the current context demonstrates the strength of the community and that of Costa del Sol as a destination, and the confidence it generates in one of the main airlines. In this sense, he assured that Andalusia “is a guarantee of profitability for the tourism business, a destination with a high power of attraction and that it has a high degree of loyalty among travellers from the most important international source markets “, which is why it is a territory” of extraordinary interest for bets like the one carried out by easyJet “.
Francisco Salado, President of the Malaga Provincial Council and President of Costa del Sol Tourism, commented:
– The offer of air seats to the Malaga Costa del Sol destination for trips from June to September is close to four million, standing at 3,429,077 seats. This figure represents a growth of + 101.6% compared to the same period of the previous year and an increase of 1,700,000 seats. EasyJet has a lot to say about this increase, which is one of the three companies that offers the vast majority of flight seats from June to September 2021. ” In the opinion of the President of the Malaga Provincial Council, the opening of the easyJet base confirms that the road to recovery has begun, “we see it in the searches carried out at our destinations, in the forecast of air seats and in our hotel occupancy forecasts among other tourist indicators, he points out.
The Mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, stressed that:
– This is good news since the opening of this new base in Malaga in itself generates jobs in the territory, but it is also an indicator clear that the airline is committed to the destination, has growth expectations and invests in it. In fact, we aspire to go from seasonal to permanent throughout the year. It should also be remembered that in the year before the pandemic – 2019 – easyJet was the second airline in Malaga with 14 routes and 2.5 million passengers”.
De la Torre highlighted that:
– Not in vain, one of our strategies regarding Air Connectivity, included in our trategic Tourism Plan for Malaga 2021-2024, is precisely to work together with other institutions and the airport so that companies can see this airport, the city of Malaga, its province and the wide hinterland that surrounds us as a strategic place to base its planes, even beyond the tourist field.”
On the way to Malaga
Since the announcement of the opening of the new base in Malaga last October, easyJet has developed a communication campaign to share its values with the local community in Andalucia. Thus, the company organized an aviation class at Los Olivos School where a pilot and two cabin crew based in Malaga explained to preschool children how airplanes fly. Also, last May the carrier launched the contest “Catch your flight”, in partnership with Cadena Ser, which consisted in a treasure hunt with five flight tickets hidden across the city.
For more information and bookings, visit: https://www.easyjet.com/es/.
