Midnight plane from Georgia: easyJet to launch Luton-Tbilisi link

Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, will start flying from Luton airport to Tbilisi in Georgia next April. It will be the first low-cost link to the capital of the former Soviet republic.

According to airline analyst Sean Moulton, Luton-based easyJet will link its home airport with Tbilisi on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

The direct distance between the two airports is 2,223 miles, but that would involve flying over Ukraine and Russia – currently off-limits for Western airlines. The actual track flown is likely to be much longer.

The flight is timed at five hours outbound and five hours 40 minutes coming back – with the Saturday flight from Georgia touching down at Luton just after midnight.

Mr Moulton said: “easyJet has been expanding its network into new cities in recent times – adding Istanbul and Cairo already, with the likes of Derry and Tromso coming this winter.

“Now another new city and, in fact, a new country to its network - Georgia. Tbilisi is one of the oldest cities in Europe and is one of the last remaining European cities not to have a direct flight to London.

“It’s been a relatively difficult place to get to since it’s been four years since the last scheduled flights from the UK to Georgia, this new twice weekly connection will help to regrow tourism to the region and boost trade links between the UK and Caucasus.”

Until the start of the Covid pandemic in early 2020, Wizz Air flew between Luton and the central Georgian city of Kutaisi. The easyJet move – which has yet to be confirmed by the airline – may trigger a response from its rival, whose main British base is at Luton.

Wizz Air surprised the aviation industry last week by announcing the longest low-cost route from the UK. From next year, it will connect Gatwick airport with Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea. The distance of almost 3,000 miles will take nearly seven hours.

Speaking on the daily travel podcast from The Independent, Rhys Jones from the frequent-flyer website Head for Points said: “For the average passenger, doing such a long flight on a low-cost airline is going to be pushing it a bit.”

The new easyJet link to Tbilisi will open up “self-connect”, low-cost connections to Astana in Kazakhstan, Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Urumqi in China.