You were dead right, Stelios – the future really is orange

As Britain's biggest budget airline turns 30 tomorrow, a grateful Simon Calder asks: what did easyJet ever do for us?

- Simon Calder

In the olden days, press releases landed at The Independent travel desk with a thump. By the sackload. The analogue predecessor of repeatedly hitting the delete key involved painstakingly opening each envelope, skimming the first couple of lines of the announcement and then binning it.

In October 1995, though, one press release caught my eye. “EasyJet £29 airfare makes flying as affordable as a pair of jeans” read the headline. The fact that the message was printed on bright orange paper helped it stand out, too.

Reading on, it seemed that The EasyJet Airline Company planned to revolutionise aviation in the UK.

“The airline is starting three daily services (two daily at the weekend), with Boeing 737s, between London Luton and Glasgow International Airport on 10 November 1995, and three daily services (two daily at the weekend) to Edinburgh will commence two weeks later on 24 November 1995.”

It seemed sadly obvious to me that, as with so many airline startups before and since, the venture was doomed to failure. A one-way fare of £29 from London to either of the two biggest Scottish cities was preposterously low. The prevailing lowest return fare from Heathrow, on both British Airways and its rival British Midland, was over £100. And those incumbents made a fortune by charging hundreds of pounds return for business travellers who were not staying in Scotland over a Saturday night.