London - EasyJet chief executive Carolyn McCall hosted a party last week to celebrate the no-frills airline’s 20th birthday.
The budget airline has helped change the face of air travel in Europe, making it easier and cheaper for people to travel around the continent.
In Hangar 89 at Luton airport outside London, the airline’s base, hundreds of staff, many in orange hats and garlands, joined in.
When EasyJet launched, people were buying package holidays on Teletext and going down to their local travel agent to pay for their holiday in instalments.
EasyJet and its Irish budget carrier rival Ryanair revolutionised the sector. The concept started with Southwest Airlines in the US. And in 1994 Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, then aged 28 and a novice to the sector, decided to have a go at “no-frills” air travel. With £5-million (R107m) start-up cash from his shipping tycoon father, he set up EasyJet with the first flight leaving Luton for Glasgow in 1995.
Its first pilot, Captain Fred Rivett, said: “I couldn’t believe the venture got off the ground. It was down to Stelios and his vision and hard work.”
Haji-Ioannou said: “We only had one aircraft, the second plane came two weeks later. If it had not gone well there wouldn’t have been another. We flew up to Glasgow and back and the rest is history.”
As well as a trip down memory lane, McCall had a handful of announcements.
It is launching a loyalty scheme, offering benefits such as flight changes for free – a departure from the no-frills ethos. McCall also said the firm is in talks with traditional airlines about providing transfer connections for long-haul passengers.
She would not confirm who EasyJet has talked to, but Germany’s Lufthansa is one of the airlines courting her.
However, there is still a lot more to do in the short-haul sector where it has less than 10 percent market share in Europe and is fighting the upstarts Norwegian and Wizz Air, and old rival Ryanair.
Daily Mail