Having secured his dream of owning his own aircraft, the confirmation of his first commercial route was only days away. All that was missing was a company name to project the business to the forefront of low cost aviation.

After numerous suggestions Stelios decided on easyJet, the motto being ‘fly for the price of a pair of Jeans, only £29.00 one way’.

The first booking was taken on 18 October 1995, from a small metal hut, rented in a corner of Luton airport, called easyLand. On 10 November 1995, when the inaugural flight took to the skies from London Luton airport it was carrying an incredible 120 passengers.

Getting there wasn’t an easy ride; easyJet was a small fish in a very large bowl. However, commitment and determination drove the easyJet workforce in believing that they had a product that would change the lives of consumers forever.

easyJet has always been about bringing people together, making a difference and offering a choice. We believed in it. Ten years on, we can see over 100 million passengers believed it too.

After just one year of operations, easyJet saw its first flight to the European continent in 1996. The wonderful city of Amsterdam was the gateway for the UK population to share easyJet’s desires to travel abroad. easyJet’s fantastic success in Europe created the opportunity to purchase their first company, ‘TEA in Switzerland’ following on to merge with ‘Go airlines’ in 2002; there was no stopping easyJet.

There were no limits to easyJet’s potential and floating the company on the stock market on 22 November 2000, only strengthened the staying-power of the UK’s first low cost airline. This year, we celebrated our 100 millionth passenger!

Today, easyJet offer 210 routes across 63 Key European airports. Over the past 12 months we’ve introduced many new services including self-service check-in, a group booking facility and easyJet airport lounges.

Ten years on, and easyJet is still growing strong.

So Happy Birthday easyJet, and long may you open the skies to customers all over Europe.