Easyjet has 'put £500m into Merseyside economy'

Oct 23 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

ONE of the biggest airlines flying out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport has been responsible for more than £500m being injected into the local economy, it was revealed last night.

On Saturday, Easyjet will celebrate its tenth anniversary of operating from JLA – in which time it has brought more five million tourists to the region.

The Mersey Partnership said this had resulted in about £527m being spent in the area over that period.

Yesterday, at a celebration at JLA, Easyjet’s chief executive Andy Harrison said the company planned to keep on expanding from the airport.

He also defended that airline’s environmental impact which he said was far lower than traditional carriers.

Easyjet started flights from JLA on October 27, 1997, when a service departed for Amsterdam.

It now flies to 16 destinations, and will continue its expansion when it adds Lisbon, Portugal next month and Innsbruck, Austria, in January.

It carries around 4,000 passengers a day, which is more than 40% of the total from the airport.

Mr Harrison said that his company had made a “significant impact on the way in which Europeans live” by making flying more accessible through cheap fares.

“We have also made a big contribution to the local economy with 400 jobs and 17,000 indirect jobs.

“And we are delighted to be an important part of the local community here.

“We are looking forward to more celebrations next year as we bring millions of passengers from across Europe to Liverpool as the city hosts the well deserved title of European Capital of Culture 2008.”

He admitted the company faced a challenge to change perceptions about low cost carriers and their environmental impact.

He said the company had a much lower carbon footprint than traditional airlines because it used modern efficient aircraft with an average age of two years old.

“We produce 22% less emissions per passenger kilometre than a traditional airline”

He said the company also saw itself as complementing rail services.

“When it’s less than four hours on the train, we try not to fly.”

Praising Easyjet’s achievement, Robert Hough, chairman of Peel Airports which owns JLA, said: “I don’t think we then realised when we first entered negotiations [with Easyjet] what the impact would be on the North West and Europe. You have changed the way people fly, it is a fantastic achievement.”

He said it was a magic story of success that had seen the 600,000 passengers using the airport in 1997 to 5.3m a year of which 2.4m are from Easyjet. “We hope this is a chapter in a long story of continuing success.”

Cllr Flo Clucas, European and economic development leader, said Easyjet’s arrival in the city had played a critical role in putting Liverpool on the European map. “The ease with which we can reach out to the continent via the airport does a huge amount for the city’s economic development and profile right across Europe.”

Martin King, director of tourism at TMP, said Easyjet had added enormously to the local economy in the past decade particularly in bringing in tourists. With the opening of the Arena and Conference Centre, he hoped there would now be a step change in the number of business visitors.

Neil Pakey, managing director of JLA, said the airport planned to keep on expanding to a limit of 11.5m to 12m set down by government. “We like to think we are well on the way to achieving that.”

Green group accuses easyJet of damaging environment > > >