Hundreds of new jobs for Birmingham Airport after big investment by airline

BIRMINGHAM Airport has received a significant boost to services with a massive new investment from holiday and airline operator Jet2.com.

The Leeds company is launching 15 new routes from the airport, which will be serviced by four new aircraft permanently based at Birmingham – an investment of several hundred million pounds.

It is one of the largest single investments ever in Birmingham Airport and the move will see Jet2.com directly create 200 new jobs, with an additional 100 – possibly more – being created by the airport.

The new routes, which will start next summer, are all within Europe and the expansion of operations will mean an additional 57 weekly flights from Birmingham.

The routes being served are to: Alicante, Crete (Heraklion), Faro, Fuerteventura, Girona (Costa Brava), Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Majorca, Malaga, Menorca, Paphos, Reus, Rhodes and Tenerife.

Of the 57 flights, there will be daily services to Alicante, Faro and Majorca.

The routes will be served by four new Boeing 737-800 aircraft, each with a 189-seat capacity.

The expansion means an additional 590,000 seats will potentially be available for the 2017 summer season, which starts on March 30 with flights to Faro and Malaga.

The new roles being created by the airline include flight and cabin crew, engineers and ground operations staff.

Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, said the expansion into Birmingham had been part of the company’s growth strategy for some time.

He said his team had been working closely with the airport during the past few months to secure the appropriate slots ready for launch.

“We are delighted to be launching services from Birmingham Airport, which becomes our eighth UK base,” he said.

“We have been looking at the prospect of launching flights from Birmingham for some time as it’s a strategically important hub given its location.

“It will be our southernmost base but it will give us access to an enormous catchment area with potentially millions of new customers.”

He said the launch of the new routes would not conflict with operations out of the East Midlands, in fact all of the new routes are complementary to existing services.

“We would never rob Peter to pay Paul – we think there is enough capacity in the market to easily accommodate these additional flights,” he added.

For airport chief executive Paul Kehoe, the investment comes as a welcome boost to operations, which have received a setback recently with the decision by a Chinese airline to withdraw services from the airport in favour of Manchester.

However, overall it has been a positive summer for the airport with the expansion of services by Emirates and new flights by Qatar Airways, together with several new short haul services.

“It’s great news that we welcome Jet2.com and Jet2holidays as partners of Birmingham Airport,” he said.

“This new addition means new jobs in our region and even more choice for travellers.”

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