easyJet has put 18 new UK routes on sale for Summer 2027, moving to lock in next year's leisure capacity while the current season is barely behind it. Fourteen of the 18 routes operate twice weekly or less, signalling a low-risk, thin-density approach built around short city breaks and week-long beach trips rather than high-frequency trunk routes.

The airline and its easyJet holidays subsidiary will serve Ajaccio, Barcelona, Bastia, Bilbao, Burgas, Girona, Hamburg, Larnaca, Milan, Montpellier, Murcia, Majorca, Rhodes, Rome, Thessaloniki and Tivat from UK airports.

Scotland takes the largest share of the expansion. easyJet, already the largest airline in Scotland, adds six routes from Aberdeen and Edinburgh:

• Aberdeen – Barcelona, from 31 March, twice weekly (Wednesdays and Saturdays)
• Aberdeen – Majorca, from 3 May, twice weekly (Thursdays and Sundays)
• Edinburgh – Bilbao, from 30 March, twice weekly (Tuesdays and Saturdays)
• Edinburgh – Rome Fiumicino, from 30 March, twice weekly (Tuesdays and Saturdays)
• Edinburgh – Hamburg, from 29 March, twice weekly (Mondays and Fridays)
• Edinburgh – Tivat, from 29 March, twice weekly (Mondays and Thursdays)

Spain accounts for six of the 18 routes, including a first-time UK service to Girona. The Spanish and remaining additions break down as follows:

• Birmingham – Milan Malpensa, from 29 March, Mondays and Fridays
• Birmingham – Tivat, from 3 May, twice weekly (Mondays and Thursdays)
• Bristol – Burgas, from 28 May, twice weekly (Mondays and Fridays)
• Bristol – Montpellier, from 1 July, twice weekly (Thursdays and Sundays)
• Liverpool – Girona, from 28 March, twice weekly (Wednesdays and Sundays)
• Liverpool – Murcia, from 29 March, twice weekly (Mondays and Fridays)
• London Gatwick – Girona, from 3 June, three times weekly (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays)
• London Gatwick – Ajaccio, from 30 June, twice weekly (Wednesdays and Sundays)
• London Luton – Thessaloniki, from 1 May, weekly Saturday departures
• London Southend – Rhodes, from 27 April, twice weekly (Tuesdays and Saturdays)
• Manchester – Bastia, from 29 June, twice weekly (Tuesdays and Saturdays)
• Newcastle – Larnaca, from 31 March, weekly Wednesday departures

Only one route in the batch — Gatwick–Girona — reaches three weekly frequencies. Two routes, Luton–Thessaloniki and Newcastle–Larnaca, operate just weekly. The start dates cluster between late March and late June 2027, consistent with a standard summer-seasonal leisure pattern.

Tivat, in Montenegro, and Bastia and Ajaccio in Corsica extend the carrier's reach into smaller Mediterranean leisure points where package-holiday demand, rather than point-to-point volume, drives the business case. easyJet holidays is selling packages to all 16 destinations, with a £60 per person deposit, flights, a hotel, 23kg of luggage and transfers on beach packages.

Kevin Doyle, easyJet's UK Country Manager, framed the announcement as a distribution play across the UK's regional airports.

"We're delighted to be offering 18 new routes and package holidays for summer 2027 which shows our commitment to providing customers across the UK with more choice from their local airport," Doyle said.

"Our Spanish network is greatly expanding with six new routes from the UK including Girona for the first time, and we're also further strengthening our presence in Scotland, where we're already the largest airline, with six new routes from Aberdeen and Edinburgh Airports," he added.

The geography of the expansion tells its own story. Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle — not Gatwick alone — carry 14 of the 18 routes. easyJet is distributing summer leisure capacity across its UK base network to capture holiday demand closer to where passengers live, a strategy that reduces reliance on the congested London market and spreads aircraft utilisation across regional airports with lower slot pressure.

The twice-weekly standard across most of the network also keeps aircraft commitment low: a route needs only one or two based or rotatable aircraft rotations per week, allowing easyJet to test demand at minimal allocation cost before deciding whether to upgauge or extend frequencies in later seasons.

The mix itself is deliberately split between sun and city. Bilbao, Hamburg, Milan, Rome and Thessaloniki serve the short-break segment; Majorca, Rhodes, Burgas, Larnaca and the Corsican points target the week-in-the-sun market that drives easyJet's peak-season yields.

Package holidays sit at the centre of the announcement rather than the margin. Every destination is bookable through easyJet holidays, which continues to build out the model of attaching hotel inventory to low-frequency seasonal flying — a structure that lets the carrier monetise routes that might not stand up on seat-only economics.

With sales open more than a year ahead of the first departures in late March 2027, easyJet gains an early read on booking curves for each new point. How many of these thin routes survive into Summer 2028 will depend on the load factors and package attach rates the airline records across the coming season.