Celebrating the arrival of the eleventh aircraft based at the Milan Malpensa Airport, easyJet announced that it has concrete plans to expand further at this most important airport in the Northern Italy.

In the month of October, the airline is to base two additional aircrafts at Malpensa, taking up the total number of aircrafts of easyJet based in this airport to 13 as the winter schedule commences. Notably, this progress has been achieved within two and a half years of launching its services from this important base.

These new aircrafts shall be employed on five new routes to the European capitals of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Sofia besides offering domestic links to destinations like Brindisi and Lamezia Terme. Over and above, the airline has also plans to increase frequencies on some of the key routes operated to Barcelona, Naples, Amsterdam and Paris in the month of October.

Addressing a press conference in Milan, Andy Harrison, easyJet Chief Executive noted, "We are investing €600m to make Malpensa one of the best-connected airports in Europe. By January 2009, we will have a fleet of 15 aircraft in Milan. With one in five passengers flying with easyJet, we have now become the largest airline in Malpensa. Thanks to this phenomenal growth, Malpensa has now become easyJet's largest base on the European continent."

In the very first year of its launch in the Malpensa base, the airline carried 1.1m passengers, doubling this figure in 2007 to 2.2. Notably, this year, the airline expects to serve not less than 3.5m passengers.