WITH the weather taking a turn for the better, we are all thinking about holidays.

Everyone loves getting on that flight and going abroad for some time away.

A prime destination to get that holiday started from in Essex is Stansted Airport.

Stansted is a market leader for short-haul travel and with 180 European destinations it serves more scheduled connections to the continent than any other UK airport.

We all know some of the favourites, with flights all across Europe, but this year Stansted has already added some new flights to its ever-growing list of destinations to enjoy.


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In February, the airport announced a new flight to Bergen in Norway.

From March, the new flight has linked the Essex airport to Scandinavia and offers travellers from London and the east of England easy access to Norway's famous fjords.

Harwich and Manningtree Standard: The Widerøe Embraer E190-E2 aircraft takes passengers to Norway twice a weekThe Widerøe Embraer E190-E2 aircraft takes passengers to Norway twice a week (Image: Widerøe)

Widerøe, the largest regional airline in Scandinavia, is operating a twice-weekly service to the country’s second-largest city using a 110-seat Embraer E190-E2 aircraft.

Summer timetables kicked-off on Sunday, March 26, with Ryanair launching a three-times-weekly service to Newquay.

Meanwhile, Jet2 launched two new city break destinations with flights starting to Athens and Rome.

Several other new routes beginning in the coming weeks include flights from Ryanair to Belfast, Edinburgh, Asturias, Klagenfurt, and Leipzig.

Emirates will also start operating a second daily flight to Dubai from May 1.

Jet2 has also announced it will be expanding its Summer 23 operation from Stansted.

This expansion means the companies have added another sunshine destination and thousands more seats from London Stansted Airport, with an additional aircraft coming into operation for the peak summer season too.

Harwich and Manningtree Standard: Jet2 has plenty of destinations across Europe this summerJet2 has plenty of destinations across Europe this summer (Image: Jet2)

It is set to introduce flights and holidays to Bourgas in Bulgaria Stansted, with twice-weekly flights operating from July 21 through to late-September.

Jet2 also announced the addition of a 16th based aircraft which will operate during the peak summer season due to huge demand for flights.

The addition of this aircraft adds thousands of seats to some of its most popular destinations in the Balearics, Italy, Portugal and Greece during the school holiday season.

The destinations seeing capacity increases (peak weekly departures from London Stansted in brackets following the increases) are: Majorca (23), Ibiza (13), Menorca (9), Sicily (2), Faro (Algarve) (12), Crete (Heraklion) (11), Kalamata (2) and Rhodes (10).

So, in short, there are plenty of amazing destinations waiting for you this summer!