Aer Lingus announces plans for base at Gatwick

Aer Lingus has recently confirmed its plans to set up a base of operations for European flights at Gatwick airport.

Four of the carrier’s planes will be based at the airport in its first move to establish an operations base outside of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.

Seven destinations will be served from Gatwick, including Faro, Knock, Malaga, Munich, Nice, Vienna and Zurich, beginning in the spring of 2009. One-way fares on the routes will start from £19.99, including taxes.

Aer Lingus is currently fending off a €748 million takeover bid by Ryanair. It already operates a Dublin-Gatwick service, but the expansion of services from Gatwick will put it in direct competition with easyJet, one of Gatwick’s largest carriers.

The Irish national airline is planning to expand its presence at Gatwick to eight aircraft within 12 months, meaning a potential passenger capacity of 2.5 million annually.

At least 120 new jobs will be created by the carrier’s move in the first year, as it located four of its Airbus A320s at the London airport.

Dermot Mannion, the Aer Lingus chief executive, said: “The Gatwick operation will complement our existing services out of London Heathrow and position Aer Lingus for growth as we roll out new routes and bases in future years.”

The commercial director at Gatwick, Mike Luddy added: “We know Aer Lingus evaluated a range of airports across Europe for their first base outside Ireland and we are delighted they chose Gatwick as their London base.”

Thanks to www.travelmole.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

www.aerlingus.com