Making it look easyJet: Celebrating easyJet’s 30th anniversary

In the 30 years since its first commercial flight, easyJet has become a formidable force in the European low-fare airline arena. From the humblest of beginnings, the carrier is now Europe’s second-largest low-fare operator. With new aircraft on order, new bases opening, and passenger numbers continuing to soar, what does the future hold? Luke Peters investigates.

This article, “Making it look easyJet” was published in the October/November 2025 issue of LARA. To find out more, apply for your complimentary subscription today.

If you had been told 30 years ago about a new UK airline start-up that would not have its own aircraft, would avoid using travel agents, preferring to sell tickets directly to the public, and would set up its headquarters at a regional airport used almost exclusively for charter flights, you would have been forgiven for rolling your eyes and walking away with a doubtful shake of the head. Indeed, many people wrote it off simply as a vanity project set up by the son of a Greek-Cypriot shipping magnate.

Fast forward three decades, and not only does that airline still exist, but it has also grown to become Europe’s sixth-largest scheduled airline. easyJet now operates a fleet of almost 360 aircraft, carrying over 100 million passengers annually, and in November 2025, the carrier will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its first commercial passenger flight. But how did such an unlikely airline that sold its initial fares “as cheap as a pair of jeans” transform from a pioneering minnow into a leviathan of the European budget airline industry?

Unconventional beginnings – The beginning of easyJet’s history

The birth of easyJet on November 10, 1995, was certainly unconventional. With an eye fixed on the impending deregulation of the European airline market, founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, funded by a GBP 5 million loan from his father and assisted by a small band of executives, set up the headquarters for their new airline in what was ostensibly a temporary building adjacent to London Luton Airport’s main taxiway.

easyJet’s first flight took off on 10 November 1995 from London Luton Airport. The inaugural flight was bound for Glasgow, Scotland

Having been splashed in lurid orange paint, the new office – which would later be christened “easyLand” – might have been perfect for plane spotters offering uninterrupted views of the runway, but was perhaps not the most conducive building from which to run an airline.

“But easyLand came cheap,” explains Tony Anderson, the airline’s first Marketing Director and a former British Airways graduate trainee.

“Keen to attract the new start-up airline to fill the void left by Ryanair, which had recently moved its main UK base 40 miles up the road to London Stansted Airport, Luton needed a new resident airline. The rent-free premises that became easyLand were the bargaining chip that swung the deal, enticing our new airline to make Luton its home.”

With its headquarters secured, the next issue was acquiring suitable aircraft. The early business model for easyJet called for short-haul jet aircraft capable of operating multiple sectors per day and capable of fast turnarounds. The Boeing 737-200 appeared to be the ideal type, just as it had been in the early days of Southwest Airlines, whose business model the nascent carrier would be based on.

“From the outset, easyJet dared to be different. With its direct selling approach and eyecatching low fares, the airline produced the blueprint for many European low-cost airlines that have come since.”

John Strickland, JLS Consulting

Serendipity meant that London Gatwick-based GB Airways was re-equipping its fleet and had a pair of surplus Boeing 737-200s. With the sweep of a pen, a deal was signed that would see easyJet use the aircraft on a wet-lease arrangement from GB Airways, with that carrier supplying both the aircraft and pilots.

With a small management team in place and two aircraft that now needed filling, Haji-Ioannou instructed Anderson to spread the word about the new airline. With the carrier’s first two routes decided upon as Luton to Edinburgh and Luton to Glasgow, Anderson says he was instructed to spend a million pounds on advertising within a week – or he would be fired. He duly complied!
Still in the age before the internet, easyJet took perhaps its boldest decision yet – to sell tickets directly to the public via a telephone-based reservations call centre based at easyLand.

Rather than using high street travel agents (the conventional method by which airlines had sold tickets for decades, but incurring commission charges in the process), travellers wanting to purchase a ticket on easyJet would call the airline and simply use their credit card to secure a reservation.

“The public was already becoming increasingly familiar with the practice of direct selling of various other goods and services in the mid-1990s, so the timing was perfect,” says Anderson.

A savvy approach – Pioneering the airline industry with dynamic pricing

Next, the airline adopted a savvy approach to revenue management and dynamic pricing. “Fares had to be low enough to coax travellers away from more conventional train and long-distance coach travel, but also to make regular air travellers fly more often,” Anderson adds.

Prices would also increase as the date of departure grew closer, encouraging people to book early, thereby ensuring the airline secured the revenue. Once booked, the customer would simply turn up at the airport with their booking reference to travel. This practice was practically unheard of in the UK at the time and took its lead from US-based carriers Southwest and ValuJet, which pioneered this form of paperless travel.

Anderson’s ultimate marketing masterstroke would come in the form of the reservations telephone number being emblazoned in huge orange digits along the sides of its two aircraft, effectively becoming flying billboards for the upstart airline.

With reservations soon rolling in thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign, and with the two GB Airways aircraft painted in an eye-catching orange and white livery, the airline was all set to begin flying revenue passengers.

The first scheduled easyJet revenue service departed from Luton Airport on 10 November 1995, carrying a full load to Glasgow. The first flight between Luton and Edinburgh took off on 24 November 1995.

“Fares had to be low enough to coax travellers away from more conventional train and long-distance coach travel, but also to make regular air travellers fly more often.”

Tony Anderson, easyJet’s first Marketing Director

easyJet – today, tomorrow and beyond – Sustainability growth, fleet expansion and pilot training

Thirty years on, easyJet has transformed into a 355-aircraft low-fare giant, with a turnover approaching GBP 10 billion. Nowadays, the easyJet airline group consists of three separate carriers (UK-based easyJet, Swiss-based easyJet Switzerland, and easyJet Europe, based in Austria), each operating under its own Air Operator Certificate.

In its most recent financial results for the full 2024 financial year, the airline group recorded a profit before tax of GBP 610 million, up GBP 155 million on the previous year. In the same period, the airline’s hugely successful package travel arm, easyJet holidays, recorded GBP 190 million profit before tax, representing an impressive year-on-year increase of 56 per cent.

In the first half of 2025, easyJet grew its capacity by 12 per cent year-on-year, with the average sector length increasing by six per cent overall. For the 2025 financial year, the airline is expecting capacity to grow by three per cent to around 103 million seats overall, while easyJet Holidays is expected to grow by around 25 per cent during the year. The current fleet of aircraft is expected to rise to 395 by the end of the 2028 financial year.

Speaking to LARA to mark the company’s 30th anniversary, easyJet’s Chief Operating Officer, David Morgan, explains the scale of the easyJet operation today and the carrier’s plans for the future.

He says: “easyJet continues to grow and, in summer 2025, operated our biggest ever flying programme, offering 1,097 routes to 157 airports across 36 countries in Europe and beyond. Network-wide, we have 32 bases and a fleet of 355 Airbus A320 family aircraft. London Gatwick was our largest base on the network in summer 2025, which saw 81 aircraft deployed. We opened new bases in 2025 in Italy, at Milan Linate and Rome Fiumicino, as well as in the UK at London Southend. We are also set to open another UK base with three aircraft at Newcastle Airport in spring 2026.”

While the opening of new bases presents new challenges, Morgan remains laser-focused on how the airline is continuously planning for the future with a comprehensive fleet and pilot recruitment plan.

He says: “The outstanding Airbus neo family aircraft order and aircraft type conversion will provide easyJet with the opportunity to grow its capacity through a combination of incremental aircraft and accelerated upgauging to larger aircraft, as well as to complete our fleet replacement programme of older A319 aircraft and replace approximately half of our A320ceo aircraft, providing the foundation for growth and bringing cost and sustainability improvements to the business.

“The adoption of the more efficient new-technology aircraft is also a core component of easyJet’s roadmap to net zero carbon emissions, delivering between 13 per cent to 30 per cent unit fuel burn efficiency improvement depending on which aircraft they replace. Alongside this, the new aircraft are significantly quieter, with half the noise footprint of the older aircraft they are replacing. In terms of those new aircraft deliveries, we received all nine expected aircraft in 2025 in time for the peak summer, and we expect to receive 17 deliveries in 2026 as planned.

“In terms of pilot recruitment, we continue to see that easyJet is an attractive choice for newly qualified and experienced pilots for reasons including our reputation for industry-leading training, career development opportunities such as quicker progression to command positions than at many other airlines, and the opportunity to work from a variety of locations.

easyJet reaches a milestone in its net zero strategy. A fifth of its fleet is now new-technology A320neo family aircraft

“With more bases coming on stream and new aircraft joining the fleet, we are pleased that this has created many job opportunities for both pilots and crew, for whom we have already been recruiting. For the long term, we continue to work with our training providers to recruit and train cadets who are scheduled to join us over the coming years.”

While seasonality remains an issue for many low-cost airlines, with many struggling to match capacity with demand across the year, Morgan explains how easyJet has strategically managed to mitigate the effects of seasonality across its network.

“Seasonal bases have been a key part of our operating model for several years as an operationally efficient way to serve the increased demand during the summer months and in markets where we see strong demand and position us for potential growth. Our seasonal bases are currently operated at Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, and Faro, and most recently we opened a seasonal base in Alicante.”

“easyJet’s mission has been to democratise travel, from when we first launched operations in 1995 for the price of a pair of jeans, making air travel accessible for millions of people for whom it was previously out of reach, and this year we expect to carry over 100 million passengers across Europe and beyond.”

David Morgan, Chief Operating Officer, easyJet

Future opportunities – Advancing airline operations with AI and net zero targets

Looking further into the future, what does Morgan consider to be the main opportunities for easyJet?

“In November 2025, easyJet marks 30 years of successful flying. We have had an incredibly exciting and successful first three decades, and the future will be equally as interesting and full of opportunity.

“As technology becomes more advanced, AI will play an ever-bigger part in our operations to ensure we remain as efficient and innovative as possible. We continue to see rapid growth of our easyJet holidays business, and with still only around six per cent of airline customers travelling on easyJet package holidays, there is a lot of opportunity for growth.

“Sustainability will, of course, continue to play an important part in our strategy, and we hope to continue moving ever closer to seeing the introduction of zero-carbon emission, hydrogen-powered short-haul aircraft.

“easyJet’s mission has been to democratise travel, from when we first launched operations in 1995 for the price of a pair of jeans, making air travel accessible for millions of people for whom it was previously out of reach, and this year we expect to carry over 100 million passengers across Europe and beyond.

“So in whatever opportunities and challenges we face in the future, ultimately our approach will be guided by ensuring flying is always easy and always affordable.”

The ‘easyJet effect’ – The carrier’s impact on low-fare accessible travel

Having been flying for three decades, the name easyJet has become synonymous with low-fare air travel in Europe. But just what is it that has made easyJet so successful for so long?

“From the outset, easyJet dared to be different,” says John Strickland of JLS Consulting. “With its direct selling approach and eye-catching low fares, the airline produced the blueprint for many European low-cost airlines that have come since.

“easyJet, along with Ryanair – albeit with some key differences between them – emulated a business model pioneered by Southwest Airlines, breaking the mould in Europe by adapting this model for the emerging deregulated European airline market.

“The key points of this business model were to keep operating costs low through high aircraft utilisation, quick turnaround times at airports, and charging for extras such as priority boarding, hold baggage, and in-flight catering – easyJet now earns around 30 per cent of total revenue through the sale of ancillary services – while keeping operating costs low.

“These were all steps that European legacy airlines were yet to adopt by the time easyJet and others emerged on the scene in what became known as the low-cost revolution.”

easyJet opened a new three-aircraft base at London Southend Airport earlier this year.

Strickland continues: “Using price stimulus, the airline was able to get travellers to consider flying for the first time, while encouraging existing fliers to fly more often. Its pricing structure has continued to prove attractive to a range of travellers, whether they be first-time flyers, visiting friends and relatives, leisure passengers, or business travellers. Through this, easyJet – along with Ryanair – has effectively democratised air travel in Europe.

“The airline has established a strong slot position at major international airports such as London Gatwick, Milan Linate and Paris Charles De Gaulle, pitching it directly against legacy carriers. It can compete more effectively from these airports with its lower cost base and increased aircraft utilisation rates.

“What easyJet has perhaps mastered best has been its ability to capture market share in various sectors – whether this be inclusive holidays, business travellers by offering more flexible tickets, add-ons, and increased frequencies on key routes, or budget travellers with basic no-frills fares.

“The future looks optimistic for easyJet. With airline consolidation in Europe showing no sign of slowing down, and the possible fallout of remedy slots at major airports up for grabs, there is more room for further easyJet expansion in the coming years.”

Thirty years ago, few would have predicted that a plucky upstart at London Luton Airport, with its unconventional business plan and garish livery, would still be flying today.

However, with its modern fleet, an exemplary safety record, a multi-billion-pound turnover, and an extensive route structure spanning Europe and beyond, easyJet appears to be well-positioned to keep painting the skies orange for the foreseeable future.