EasyJet Holidays: Airline reveals plans to turn city breaks into package holidays - putting pressure on rivals Ryanair, TUI and Booking.com

EasyJet wants to get customers to book their whole trip abroad through the budget airline, and so short-term city breaks could be sold as package trips going forward. The move will put pressure on rivals such as Ryanair, which has no holiday arm, and tour operators such as Tui and OnTheBeach, which focus on beach resorts.

It will also put pressure on online travel agents including Booking.com, which are currently used by most of its flight-only travellers for booking hotels. The airline launched its easyJet Holidays operation in November 2019 and demand surged last year with UK customers rising from 1.9million to 2.6million.

Now, easyJet's new chief executive Kenton Jarvis is trying to maximise the potential of the Holidays arm which is already the group's most profitable division. Mr Jarvis told the Sunday Telegraph: “These are really popular routes. Amsterdam, for example, will be one of our busiest destinations this winter.

“Yet at the moment almost everyone travels independently and books their own room. What we need to do is persuade people coming to us for flights that we can also offer quality accommodation at a cheaper price, which is true seven times out of 10.”

EasyJet Holidays told MailOnline that popular city break destinations for 2025 include Amsterdam, Krakow and Paris - with the first few months of the year being a popular time to visit. Cities see particularly high demand for adult-only bookings, although Paris is popular with families given the draw of Disneyland Paris.

EasyJet offers beach and city holidays to over 7,000 hotels in more than 100 destinations across Europe and North Africa, directly through its website and through over 7,000 travel agent partners. The firm lists its most popular locations for city breaks on its website as Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Krakow, Lisbon, Prague, Reykjavik, Copenhagen and Berlin.