Easyjet, the British low cost airline company, has announced that it is to invest 100 million euros in setting up a new European base in Barajas, Madrid which will start operating in February 2007 making it the airlines 17th operative base in Europe. More details will be made public later next month.

Andy Harrison, Easyjet’s spokesperson justified Spain as first choice saying that Spain offered ‘excellent opportunities for growth given that air travel was still dominated by traditional carriers’.

Easyjet has been operating since 1998 and is the fourth largest operator after Iberia, Spanair and AirEuropa. In 2005 it carried 900,000 passenger, double the figure for the previous year.

At present Easyjet operates from 12 Spanish airports: Barajas, Barcelona, Asturias, Bilbao, Valencia, Murcia, Almería, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza.