easyJet Europe is the Austrian subsidiary of the British low-cost carrier easyJet, set up so the group could keep flying within the EU after Brexit. Measured by the number of aircraft registered in Austria, it is the country’s largest airline, even though little of that is visible in Austria itself.
Photo: Anna Zvereva · License: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source: Wikimedia Commons
Founded Because of Brexit
easyJet Europe was founded on 18 July 2017. The background was the United Kingdom’s impending departure from the EU, which would otherwise have stripped easyJet, as a British company, of its traffic rights within the EU. With an Austrian Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) and accompanying licence, the group secured itself an EU base for flight operations within the Union. easyJet has since operated three AOCs in parallel: easyJet Europe in Austria, easyJet Switzerland in Switzerland and easyJet UK in the United Kingdom.
Austria’s Largest Airline, Barely Visible in Austria
With 127 Austria-registered Airbus A320-family aircraft at last count, easyJet Europe was, in 2024, the airline with the largest fleet registered in Austria, ahead of even Austrian Airlines. Yet none of those aircraft are actually based in Austria: in its winter schedule, easyJet offered only around ten routes touching Austria, mostly connections to the ski regions around Innsbruck and Salzburg airports, with no routes to or from Vienna on the schedule at that time. Group-wide, easyJet planned to raise the share of modern A320neo and A321neo aircraft in its fleet to 25 percent by October 2024 and up to 80 percent by 2033, with 156 aircraft on order plus 100 further options, while the older A319 type was to be phased out of the fleet over the following two years.
Further reading: Austrian Aviation History
Sources (Selection)
- aerointernational.de: easyJet Europe is Austria’s largest airline (German)
- ADS Group: easyJet Europe now operational after Austrian AOC and licence awarded
Part of the Austrian Aviation History section. An independent, private history project with no connection to Austrian Airlines AG, the Lufthansa Group or easyJet plc.