. Introduction and History
In 1995 Greek entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou founded the no frills airline, easyJet. Today easyJet is one of the largest low-cost airlines in Europe, operating domestic and international scheduled services on 307 routes between 80 key European cities (www.easyJet.com). It is based on the low cost, no-frills model of the US carrier Southwest. The concept of easyJet is based on the belief that demands for short-haul air transport is price elastic, meaning, that if flight prices were to be reduced, more people would fly. EasyJet keeps costs low by eliminating the unnecessary costs and 'frills' which characterise 'traditional' airlines.
Traditionally airline concepts are based on the assumption that airline traffic grows in line with the economy and that cutting prices will only lead to a decrease in revenues. In 1992 after the ’no-nonsense’ concept was deregulated (www.bbcnews.co.uk) , easyJet went from strength to strength by actually increasing the size of the market and furthermore by taking away passengers from other major airlines (as passenger figures show on www.easyjet.com) therefore proving the theory very wrong.
The airline was established on 18 October 1995 and started operations on 10 November 1995. Initially with two leased Boeing 737-300 easyJet starts flights from Luton to Glasgow and Edinburgh with a capacity of 148 seats at a price of £29 one way. One year later easyJet goes international with flights to Amsterdam from Luton with its first wholly owned aircraft. In 1997 easyJet launches its website, easyJet.com which will from 1998 onwards form a vital part of the business concept and provides over 90% of today’s bookings (wikipedia.com).
2. Easy ...