easyJet to reopen Newcastle base five years after Covid closure
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Five years after easyJet closed its base at Newcastle airport, Britain's biggest budget airline has announced it will reopen for summer 2026.
Newcastle was an important UK base for Go, the short-lived budget airline from British Airways that was later taken over by easyJet. The base at the Tyneside airport was closed in August 2020 along with the East Midlands and Southend operations.
EasyJet reopened its Southend base in March this year. The airline has continued to fly in and out of Newcastle from other bases including Bristol, Belfast International, Geneva, Palma and Paris.
The three-aircraft base at the airport will open in March 2026, creating around 130 jobs for pilots, crew and engineers.
Routes are yet to be announced but are likely to comprise sunshine flights to destinations in Portugal, the Canaries, the Greek islands and Turkey – as well as one or two city destinations.
Jet2, Ryanair already have strong positions at Newcastle.
The airport's chief executive, Nick Jones, said: 'It is fantastic that easyJet has chosen to open a new base at Newcastle airport in spring 2026 following such strong demand for flights and package holidays from our passengers.
'This investment will not only offer greater connectivity with the launch of new routes, but it will also deliver hundreds of thousands of additional low-cost seats and package holidays for our passengers; a significant boost to the local economy by creating high-quality jobs and attract more inbound visitors to the region.'
Kenton Jarvis, easyJet's chief executive, said:'This not only consolidates our position as the UK's largest leisure airline but will create many skilled jobs and provide critical connectivity for the region, playing an important role in enabling vital economic growth for the UK.
'It's clear that holidays are increasing in importance and more than ever are a priority for UK consumers. With our unrivalled short-haul network and unique easyJet holidays, we're able to offer greater choice and value for money, making travel easy for more customers in the North East and beyond.'
Mr Jarvis has also commented on easyJet's half-year results. The airline's headline loss before tax for winter was £394 million, in line with consensus predictions.
The easyJet CEO said: 'We remain focused on delivering another record summer this year, expecting to drive strong earnings growth as we continue to progress towards our target of sustainably generating over £1bn of annual profit before tax.'
The airline has put in 'additional resilience measures to manage increasing ATC [air-traffic control] delays as part of our ramp up preparations for the summer period'.
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