easyJet, the UK’s largest airline, has today begun its first ever scheduled flights between Manchester and Moscow, operating four flights each way a week.
Upto 180 passengers from Stockport and the North of England can board the four hour flights that will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays using an Airbus A320.
easyJet announced it had won the rights to operate flights between London Gatwick and Moscow last October and now Manchester will become the only airport in the UK outside of London offering Moscow services. The airline expects to fly over 60,000 passengers in its first year of service between Manchester and Moscow.
This brings the total number of easyjet aircraft based at Manchester to eight. The eighth aircraft has created jobs for a further 80 cabin crew, pilot and ground handling jobs in Manchester taking the total number of new jobs from easyjet’s latest 2 new aircraft to 160 with a combined total of around 500 indirect jobs resulting from the expansion.
Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive of easyJet,
commented:
“We are pleased to see the launch of the first
ever scheduled services between Manchester
and Moscow.
These new services exactly fit easyJet’s ‘join the
dots’ strategy which is to add flights to
destinations from multiple bases across Europe
providing passengers with convenient point to
point services.
“Russia has a fast growing economy and is a
country rich in culture and history – so a direct
link from the North of England has been long
overdue. With our strong European network we
look forward to connecting Moscow with other
European cities.
“We are also pleased that, with the arrival of the new aircraft, we have created new jobs for the city.
Moscow and Prague will appeal to business and leisure travellers alike with Thessaloniki promising to be a popular choice for holidaymakers from the region along with more frequent flights to popular destinations like Paphos and Santorini”.
Ken O’Toole, Chief Commercial Officer for MAG, owners of Manchester Airport, said:
“To see the Moscow service added to our network, alongside the basing of an eighth aircraft, is exactly the type of growth we want to support for our airlines and passengers. The Moscow service provides greater connectivity to the global marketplace while demonstrating confidence in our ability to support routes to growth economies like Russia.
“The basing of an additional aircraft and the inclusion of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, is also welcome as are more services to the Czech Republic through Prague. easyJet will serve 32 routes from Manchester next Summer and we look forward to working with them on the continued growth.”
Increase in Passenger numbers
Figures released earlier this Month (March) show that 1.19 million passengers travelled through Manchester Airport in February 2013, which was a 1.5% improvement on February 2012 statistics. Allowing for the impact of the additional leap year day in February 2012, the underlying growth is nearer 5%.
The increase in passenger figures marks the airport’s tenth consecutive month of year on year growth, with performance attributed to an increase in international scheduled traffic, additional long haul capacity and new services introduced by low cost carriers, including easyJet.
Overall load factors – which show how full the average flight was – reached 74.6% in February 2013, which was 3.7ppt up on February 2012. The moving annual total for Manchester Airport is now 19.7 million passengers.
Ken O’Toole commented further:
“During the first month of the year, we experienced the highest growth of any major airport* in the UK. January’s passenger numbers showed that traffic at Manchester grew by 3.2% or 36,000 versus January 2012, and that’s a result of stronger overall load factors and increased capacity on a number of carriers including Emirates, Monarch, United Airlines and Ryanair.
“This year, we have our sights fixed on getting passenger numbers up past 20 million for Manchester and that will be significant because the last time we were at that level was back in 2008. This Summer season, with the addition of new services including from easyJet to Moscow and Warsaw with Ryanair, will contribute in achieving that ambition.”