This month marks the 20th anniversary of Easyjet establishing a base at London’s Gatwick airport, with the airline having carried over 200 million customers to and from the airport in the last two decades.

Easyjet launched its first based flight from Gatwick to Barcelona on February 1, 2002, with flight EZY813 departing the airport at 1115 with 137 passengers onboard.

Routes to Edinburgh, Zurich, Malaga and Palma followed later that month – the carrier had served Gatwick prior to this, but only on inbound services via other bases at Geneva, Nice and Amsterdam.

Easyjet has since become the biggest carrier at Gatwick, and the airport is the largest base on the carrier’s network – this summer the airline says it will serve over 120 routes from Gatwick using 79 aircraft.

The carrier launched its Worldwide by Easyjet self-connection service at Gatwick back in 2017, which now counts partners including Air Transat, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad and Westjet.

Easyjet’s first A321 neo aircraft was based at Gatwick in 2018, and in October last year the carrier opened its first branded lounge at the airport.

Easyjet opens first branded airport lounge

Easyjet used the celebrations to highlight a new route from Gatwick to Rijeka on the island of Krk in Croatia, with flights going on sale this week and operating twice weekly (Tuesday and Saturdays) from May 3.

Commenting on the news Ali Gayward, Easyjet’s  UK country manager, said:

“Easyjet is delighted to be celebrating 20 years at our London Gatwick base, our largest base in the network. Over the last two decades we have remained committed to providing even more choice for our customers travelling to and from the airport, growing our operation to become Gatwick’s largest airline.

“And we remain focussed on growth at Gatwick; we recently added  over a million extra seats from the airport for next summer and new routes such as our new flights to Krk off the coast of Croatia, continuing to provide passengers with an ever-greater range of destinations all with a convenient schedule, low fares and great service for both leisure and business travellers.

“Now is a great time to book with Easyjet. We are excited about our plans at Gatwick for next summer, and we can’t wait to welcome more customers back onboard.”

easyjet.com