EasyJet is ramping up its French operations with a 50% increase in services as well as introducing new airports.
Some 23 new routes will come on stream by the end of the first half of 2008, while a new base at Paris Charles de Gaulle will start on 7 February.
Lyon Saint-Exupery will open as an easyJet base from 4 April with seven routes to Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marrakech, Casablanca, Porto, Lisbon and Venice. Four new French airports will also feature shortly in the easyJet network, namely Montpellier from 4 May (London Gatwick daily); Nantes from 31 March (Geneva ” 31 March, Gatwick daily ” 21 June) and on Corsica, the two airports of Bastia (Gatwick, weekly) and Ajaccio (Gatwick, weekly). Bale-Mulhouse will equally serve the Sardinian capital of Cagliari from this summer.
”The scale of easyJet”s development in the next few months shows the importance of the potential growth in France; with a low-cost penetration rate half that of the European average (19% versus 37%), the country offers extraordinary opportunities to grow for a company such as ours,” said easyJet France managing director Francois Bacchetta.
”The start of these 23 new routes will allow us to tap into tourism potential as well as creating hundreds of new jobs. Low-cost is synonymous with prosperity and economic activity for France. The growth that we see today is only the start of a long-term growth strategy for France.”
The country is still massively dominated by Air France with a 60% market share, particularly as the carrier now owns several smaller airlines as subsidiaries, but easyJet nonetheless is number two with 6%.
French business travellers are a key target for easyJet, which believes that it can compete strongly with Air France on price, while areas such as Lyon with its high-tech environment currently have very limited low-fare opportunities.
With the new services, easyJet estimates it will fly 8m passengers by the end of 2008 ” 2m more than last year ” with the carrier also increasing flights from Charles de Gaulle.
Three orange aircraft will be based at CDG ” a doubling of capacity ” a decision based largely on the fact that Paris” second airport at Orly and where easyJet has 6 aircraft, is so slot-constrained. Six new routes from Charles de Gaulle will now see Biarritz, Marrakech, Hamburg, Krakow, Porto and Venice served but it will be interesting to see if easyJet can replicate its classic low-cost model at the premier French airport.