EasyJet will add 3 aircraft to its fleet at Gatwick and is anticipated to partly fill some slots which are to be vacated by Aer Lingus later in 2010, but at the moment EasyJet have not revealed which routes these additional aircraft will operate on.
Aer Lingus will remove two of its Airbus A320s out of operation, leaving a fleet of only 3 at Gatwick, serving Malaga, Dublin and Knock (a new route to Cork).
A statement from Aer Lingus read:-
As a result of cost and capacity management actions implemented during 2009, the Group expects to report a small operating profit (before exceptional items) for the second half of 2009.
“This performance primarily reflects better than expected yields in the second half of 2009, which have been driven by removal of a long haul aircraft in September and tactical route cancellations in November.
Passenger figures were also up in December, by 9% year-on-year to 766,000.
Easyjet’s regional general manager Paul Simmons said:
We are proud to have developed our business at Gatwick over the last few years.
As a result of this additional capacity we plan to announce some great new routes from Gatwick for this summer within the next few weeks.
