• easyJet is celebrating flying over 50 million passengers to and from Manchester with a flight prize for a pair of lucky travellers

  • The milestone comes following the arrival of an extra A321 neo aircraft to be based in Manchester this summer, creating over 400 direct and indirect jobs - the airline’s 23rd Manchester-based aircraft

  • easyJet started operations at Manchester Airport 17 years ago flying its first customers from the city in March 2008

easyJet has celebrated carrying over 50 million passengers to and from Manchester Airport.

To mark the occasion, easyJet surprised two lucky travellers; Les and Celia Benson who were flying from Manchester to Menorca, with a pair of return flights to anywhere on easyJet’s network.

The airline launched operations at Manchester Airport in March 2008, flying its first customers from Manchester to Faro, Innsbruck and Paphos.

Seventeen years later, the addition of a new Airbus A321neo aircraft for this summer demonstrates the continuing strong demand from customers in the North West, enabling the airline to offer even greater connections to Europe and beyond.

easyJet has been growing in Manchester and this summer launched new routes to Izmir, Kalamata, Larnaca, Madrid and Rennes for the first time.

This means easyJet will connect customers in the North-West with 85 routes throughout the UK, Europe and North Africa.

Kevin Doyle, easyJet’s UK Country Manager, said:

“We are thrilled to celebrate carrying over 50 million passengers since we started flying to and from Manchester in March 2008. And the recent addition to our aircraft fleet supports many skilled jobs and connectivity and is a clear demonstration of our continued commitment to serving customers in the North-West as well as supporting inbound travel for tourism.

“Through our unrivalled short-haul network and unique easyJet holidays offering, we continue to provide more choice and value for money, always aiming to make travel easy for the millions of customers we fly to and from Manchester each year”

Ends

For further information, please contact the easyJet Press Office via medicentre.easyJet.com/contacts or on 01582 525252

Notes to editors

To discover more about easyJet’s network and to book, visit easyJet.com. Customers can also book a beach holiday or city break with easyJet holidays www.easyjet.com/en/holidays

About easyJet

easyJet is one of Europe’s largest airlines offering a unique and winning combination of the best route network connecting Europe's primary airports with great value fares and friendly service. easyJet flies on more of Europe’s most popular routes than any other airline and carried more than 100 million passengers in 2024. The airline has over 340 aircraft flying on over 1,000 routes to more than 160 airports across 35 countries. Over 300 million Europeans live within one hour's drive of an easyJet airport.

easyJet aims to be a good corporate citizen, employing people on local contracts in nine countries across Europe in full compliance with national laws and recognising their trade unions. The airline supports several local charities and has a corporate partnership with UNICEF which has raised over £17m for the most vulnerable children since it was established in 2012.

In 2022, easyJet published its roadmap to net zero by 2050. The roadmap, which also features a combination of fleet renewal, operational efficiencies, airspace modernisation, Sustainable Aviation Fuel and carbon removal technology, has set an ambitious interim carbon emissions intensity reduction target of 35% by 2035, validated by the Science-based targets initiative (SBTi). The airline’s ultimate aim is to fully transition its fleet to zero carbon emission technology, which it will achieve through a number of strategic partnerships including with Airbus, Rolls-Royce and GKN Aerospace Solutions. Since 2000, the airline has successfully reduced its carbon emissions per passenger, per kilometre by one-third and is the number 1 ESG rated airline in Europe by Sustainalytics, MSCI and CDP.

Innovation is in easyJet’s DNA – since launching nearly 30 years ago, easyJet changed the way people fly to the present day where the airline leads the industry in digital and operational innovations to make travel more easy and affordable for its passengers. In 2023 easyJet was named by TIME as one of the World’s Best Companies and a Leader in Diversity 2024 by The Financial Times.

About easyJet holidays:

easyJet holidays, which launched in 2019 is a leading package holiday provider which operates from the UK, Switzerland, Germany and France. The company took over 2.5 million customers on holiday in 2024.

Named UK & Ireland Travel Company of the Year 2024, it offers great value beach and city holidays to over 8000 hotels, in more than 100 destinations across Europe and North Africa, directly through its website and through over 7000 travel agent partners.

The ATOL-protected holidays can be secured with a deposit of just £60 per person, including flights and accommodation, as well as 23kg luggage and transfers on beach breaks. easyJet holidays is a member of ABTA, and all packages are covered by its Ultimate Flexibility, offering freedom to change a booking, a refund guarantee, and best price guarantee.

Winners of the Sustainable Future Award, easyJet holidays’ sustainability strategy, ‘Holiday Better’, focuses on three key pillars – create better holiday choices by making sustainable travel affordable and accessible to everyone; keep our holidays special by maximising the benefits and minimising the negative impacts of travel and tourism, and transform travel for everyone by embedding sustainability into business decisions and behaviours and driving meaningful change in the industry.

The tour operator has partnered with UN Tourism to help develop the first environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework for tourism businesses, co-designing a measurement tool that is meaningful and feasible for better monitoring how tourism businesses impact, and depend on, people, planet and prosperity.

easyJet holidays was named one of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work in 2023 and 2024.