easyJet is essential British travel infrastructure
Airline Revenue Economics
SubscribeSign in
Network<br>easyJet is essential British travel infrastructure<br>The government should not allow a profitable airline to stop flying
Oliver Ranson<br>Jul 10, 2026<br>∙ Paid
Share
easyJet is under offer. I have no idea whether or not the deal will go through. And I have no idea what the plans of prospective buyers Castlelake might be.<br>But I do know that easyJet is essential aviation infrastructure for the UK. Whatever happens with Castlelake, the government should ensure that everyone’s favourite orange-themed airline must keep flying for as long as it is profitable to do so.<br>In this article I will explain why I believe this, with reference to the UK’s domestic travel market. Here, easyJet competes with road and rail as well as other airlines. If things proceed with the deal, I may return to easyJet’s UK to overseas markets and British consumers in a future piece.<br>Advertisement:
This article was written using data from OAG Schedules Analyser: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!<br>Consider the next half term holiday. My old school will break up on Sat-17-Oct and return on Sun-1-Nov. During the first of these two weeks, easyJet will operate 1,208 flights entirely within the United Kingdom. 212,382 seats will be available for sale, according to the latest OAG schedule data.<br>The UK is quite a small place, so most of these flights will be between rather than within the UK’s constituent countries, as shown in the maps below.
You can click these links to play with the maps:<br>England <> England | England <> N Ireland | England <> Scotland | N Ireland <> Scotland<br>To understand how easyJet is essential for British travellers, a little local geography is required.<br>Start with Northern Ireland. The alternative to flying is rail or car across to Great Britain’s west coast, then a ferry. Irish sea crossings are slow. So are the east/west trains. easyJet’s quick and efficient flights are an essential link to England and Scotland.<br>Next, consider the smaller (for easyJet) England to England market, where viable road and rail alternatives exist. England <> England has 5,678 seats a week, a rare example of a large data source producing an output in four consecutive numbers!<br>easyJet does not need to fly from Newcastle, Manchester, Bristol or Newquay to London because rail alternatives are fast and plentiful. The East Coast Main Line and GWR services to the west use the country’s shiniest and newest trains.<br>Flows on these parts of the network tend to be London-centric, so when seats are available they are available all the way.<br>It is no co-incidence that flights head north west or south east. Cross-country trains are slow and well known to travellers as probably the grubbiest on the network.<br>Cross-country rail is also demand constrained. People travelling from Newcastle to Sheffield compete for seats with travellers from Darlington to Leeds, or York to Cheltenham.<br>A Newcastle to Bristol traveller on the cross-country line is competing for seats with many shorter flows, which makes seats on the train expensive and sometimes hard to find. This makes easyJet a good option.<br>Cornish seaside destination Newquay will be popular at the Michaelmas half term, and tourism is important for the local economy. The road alternatives are slow. Rail involves an inconvenient transfer. Once again, flying easyJet is a good option. Without easyJet flights, some hotels, restaurants and attractions might struggle to survive.<br>The England and Scotland market is different still. With 562 flights and 98,424 seats a week, this is easyJet’s largest UK domestic market. British Airways alternatives are available from Heathrow and London City Airport.<br>442 (79.2%) of the 562 flights a week are to the lowland cities Edinburgh and Glasgow. Travellers from these cities can reach London by train in only slightly more time than flying*. Trains are abundant and arguably an easier journey as there are no metal detectors, queues or long waits to get seated.
Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Oliver Ranson.<br>Claim my free post<br>Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Oliver Ranson · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice<br>Start your SubstackGet the app<br>Substack is the home for great culture
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts