EasyJet – Britain’s budget airline
There are a handful of airlines that operate from the United Kingdom, each with their own specific business model. Some, like British Airways provide long-haul flights to every inhabitable continent on the globe. Others, like EasyJet concentrate on driving sales on short-haul flight services by providing customers with travel at highly competitive low-cost rates.
The airline has its headquarters in London Luton Airport which is just a short train ride out of the centre of the capital city of England: London. The company serves more passengers with flights to and form the United Kingdom than any other British airline. The airline operates domestic flights to destinations around the United Kingdom, as well as scheduled flights to international destinations in reasonable travelling distance from Britain. EasyJet operates its international services on more than five hundred different routes between one hundred and eighteen airports located across the rest of Europe as well as in West Asia and North Africa.
The airlines parent company Easy Jet plc. is officially listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is thus an open publicly traded company. The company is also an official constituent of the authoritative FTSE 250 Index. The company employees more than eight thousand people across Europe, with employees working in many different countries. That said, most of the jobs created by the company are based in and around the United Kingdom.
The airline has quite a high profile amongst the British public, having entered into popular culture as a firmly established phenomenon. The company’s founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is considered to be something of an entrepreneurial guru, and is frequently mentioned on news broadcasts about the company’s activities.
EasyJet was the subject of a reality television series that was broadcast on the Independent Television channel called ‘Airline’. The series was a documentary that followed the day to day lives of employees and passengers at the airline’s main base at London Luton Airport. This series only served to reinforce the strong image that the company has secured for itself with the British public.
Much of the company’s revenue is generated by the sale of low cost air tickets to destinations in Europe that are popular with British holiday makers. For example, the airline provides a number of cheap services to warmer destinations in Spain and Greece during summer months. There are also frequent low cost flights available to relatively cheaper destinations in Eastern Europe and Amsterdam in Holland, where British tourists can take advantage of the economic and cultural differences respectively.