easyJet has announced a new route from London Gatwick to Åre Östersund Airport, Sweden which will commence on 11 December 2016 and is expected to be especially popular with skiers and snowboarders.
The new route will be easyJet’s first service from the UK to Sweden. When it launches it will be the 32nd country in easyJet’s network and the 107th destination available from London Gatwick airport.
The winter only service will operate once per week on Sundays on an A320 aircraft. easyJet expects to carry 4,800 passengers in its first Winter of operation.
easyJet flies more than three times more frequently to and from Europe’s ski destinations than any other UK airline.
In addition to this new route the airline operates to Lyon, Saltzburg, Turin, Innsbruck, Grenoble, and its largest gateway, Geneva in Switzerland to which it carries 190,000 passengers to every week throughout the season. On any given Saturday in January, easyJet will have up to 88 flights and carry over 12,000 customers throughout the day into Geneva alone.
Neil Slaven, easyJet’s UK commercial Manager, said:
“Åre Östersund, which is located in Sweden’s Jämtland province, is a great skiing destination and we are sure it will prove a popular service for both skiers and snowboarders looking to explore the region.
“High profile sporting events such as the Alpine World Championships coupled with the ever increasing quality of ski resorts across Europe are helping to inspire first time skiers and contributing to the rise in popularity we are seeing amongst our customers for ski breaks.”
“The Åre Ostersund area is also famous for both its location to nearby nature as well as winter activities such as horse and dog sleds and snowmobile safaris which make it a fantastic family destination. We are sure that our travellers from Gatwick will find the range of winter activities on offer very appealing.
Ami Hovstadius, Managing Director VisitSweden UK:
“We are very excited to be working with easyJet on this new direct route to Åre Östersund Airport and Sweden’s top alpine ski resorts. More people are travelling to Sweden from the UK than ever before with the Swedish lifestyle, Scandi food and Nordic Noir proving irresistible. Sweden’s mountain region of Jämtland Härjedalen boasts not only with the country’s best ski resorts, like Åre and Vemdalen, but also has an abundance of winter outdoor activities and delicious food. We really look forward to welcoming the British holidaymaker to experience our winter lifestyle.”
Last year over 16 million passengers flew easyJet in and out of London Gatwick. easyJet started flying from the airport in 1999 and now has 60 aircraft based there, operating on 107 routes. The airline has around 1400 cabin crew and 700 pilots operating from the Gatwick and plans to continue to grow at Gatwick by exploring new routes and deploying larger aircraft as easyJet replaces 156 seat A319s with 180 seat A320s and, from 2017, A320neos.
easyJet operates from 14 UK airports to ski destinations (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Newcastle, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, London Luton, London Gatwick, London Southend, and Bournemouth) including 10 daily flights between London Luton and Geneva, and a further 11 daily flights between London Gatwick and Geneva, its two largest UK airports operating ski flights.