EasyJet started with 70 staff and a free building at Luton
In 1995 a young Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur borrowed from his father, set up an airline at Luton, an airport mostly used by charter flights, and sold seats far below the big carriers. EasyJet flew about 40,000 people in its first year; by 2022 it carried nearly 70 million.
Stelios Haji-Ioannou reportedly got interested in aviation after being approached to invest in a Greek franchise of Virgin Atlantic. Spotting an empty niche, and with a promised 5 million pound loan from his father, he studied airline models and launched EasyJet in 1995 as the first business of what became the EasyGroup. It started with 70 employees. Luton Airport, eager for the traffic, gave it free use of a building for its head office, dubbed EasyLand, and overheads were kept to a minimum.
Low fares were the entire pitch. The airline did not even hold its own operating certificate at first, so GB Airways and then Air Foyle HeavyLift flew its planes until late 1997. Its first wholly owned aircraft arrived in April 1996 and opened a route to Amsterdam against British Airways and KLM; BA largely shrugged, while KLM was accused of predatory pricing and drew a European Union investigation.
Growth came from buying and from new bases. A 40 per cent stake in the Swiss charter carrier TEA Basle in 1998 became EasyJet Switzerland, based in Geneva, its first base outside Britain. In 2002 it bought rival Go Fly for 374 million pounds, gaining bases at Bristol, East Midlands and Stansted, and opened at Gatwick, now its largest base. GB Airways, its early operator, followed in 2007 for 103.5 million pounds. The company floated in November 2000 and joined the FTSE 100 in March 2013.
The pandemic brought it to a halt. On 30 March 2020, after 650 rescue flights bringing 45,000 people home, it grounded every aircraft, and it took a 600 million pound government loan. Today it runs 321 aircraft from 29 bases, flies 927 routes in more than 34 countries, and sells package holidays too, making it Europe's second-largest budget airline by passengers.
Source: EasyJet
