News: First flights from Edinburgh to Madrid set for take off
Flights > News > # 1129 (19/12/2006)
The first scheduled flights between Edinburgh and Madrid will be launched early next year.
Easyjet has announced they will run a daily service between the Scottish and Spanish capitals from February 25. The budget airline has also unveiled plans to offer daily flights to Milan Malpensa from May 21 and weekly flights to Palma (Majorca) from May 5. In a further boost to Edinburgh passengers, Easyjet will be increasing the frequency of its Amsterdam service from daily to twice daily from April 4.
Easyjet general manager, David Osborne, said: “2006 has been has been a great year for Easyjet in Scotland, we saw significant growth at our base in Glasgow and we are now welcoming 2007 with huge expansion at our Edinburgh base.
“We expect the new routes to Madrid, Milan, Munich and Palma to attract not only outbound leisure passengers and boost incoming tourism to the region, but will also help Scotland develop its business links with these key European business centres.”
The Madrid and Milan routes are a result of investment from the Scottish Executive’s route development fund, a scheme introduced to support new direct air links which could potentially bring economic benefits to Scotland. Easyjet will benefit from marketing support to help promote Scotland as a destination in Spain and Italy.
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Comment:
The new flights to Madrid are interesting, considering that both Easyjet and Ryanair have recently set up a base there. Initially, Easyjet did not announce any new routes from the UK to the Spanish capital, whereas Ryanair have added new Madrid flights from East Midlands and Bournemouth airports, together with flights from Dublin and Shannon in Ireland.
Whilst Easyjet had previously established regional links with Madrid from Liverpool and Bristol, there was a notable gap in the market for cheap flights to Madrid from Scotland, which has now been filled, with a little help from the Scottish Executive’s Route Development Fund.
Easyjet will be in competition from Jet2 on the Milan route. Jet2 will be offering four flights a week between Edinburgh and Milan Bergamo from April 1 until the end of October. Passengers will certainly benefit if a price war develops between the two no-frills airlines.
