An airline has announced it will expand its base at Glasgow Airport in a move creating 40 jobs.

EasyJet will operate an additional aircraft at the city airport from next summer to offer customers more choice and better connectivity across the UK, Europe and beyond.

The new neo aircraft, which is more environmentally beneficial than the current generation, will join two 156-seat Airbus A319, two 186-seat A320s, and one 186-seat A320neo aircraft already serving the airport.

The move is expected to result in almost 300 employees being based in Glasgow including pilots, cabin crew and base management.

It comes after EasyJet launched its biggest-ever summer schedule in Scotland, flying a record seven million passengers in 2023.

They also introduced new routes from Glasgow to Belfast, Lisbon and Porto, and we recently reported that flights to Hurghada in Egypt had begun taking off.

New services to Southampton, Larnaca and Enfidha will operate from Glasgow next summer.

Ali Gayward, easyJet UK's country manager, said: “We are proud to be Scotland’s largest airline and are delighted to have carried a record 7 million customers in our last financial year, offering a fantastic network of 84 routes across four Scottish airports - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Inverness.

“We continue to see opportunity in Scotland which is why we are pleased to be basing an additional aircraft in Glasgow from next summer to offer our customers even more choice, like our new routes to Enfidha and Larnaca, providing more connectivity to popular destinations across the UK, Europe and beyond, all with great value fares and a warm welcome onboard.”

Matt Hazelwood, chief commercial officer at AGS Airports, added: “EasyJet’s decision to introduce a sixth based aircraft is a huge endorsement of our continued recovery and testament to a fantastic relationship between the airline and Glasgow Airport that stretches back more than 27 years to the airline’s inaugural flight.

“This is a significant investment given that the introduction of yet another based aircraft brings with it and will support approximately 40 new jobs at Glasgow Airport.

“It has been a bumper year for both airport and airline not only celebrating the 40-million passenger landmark earlier this year, but we also welcome a number of new routes which are proving popular with our passengers.”