THOMAS Cook Airlines will base an extra Airbus A321 at Gatwick Airport from May 2018, adding 140,000 seats a year from the London hub.

The additional flights, which are already on sale, will take passengers to Turkey, Tunisia, the Canaries and the Balearics this summer on both flight-only and package holidays.

In total, the airline will have nine aircraft at Gatwick from May.

Chief airlines officer Christoph Debus said: “We’re very pleased to expand our Gatwick programme by 12 percent this summer.

“It means we can take more customers to some of our most popular short and mid-haul holiday destinations, including Turkey where we are seeing particularly strong demand, and Tunisia, which is proving very popular.”

The airline will operate two additional daily Gatwick flights from May 24 to October 31 this year.

Thomas Cook also announced on Friday that it is to add Liverpool as a new departure airport for summer 2019 in partnership with easyJet.

It will be the first time in more than 10 years since the company offered holidays from Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

It has launched eight destinations for package holidays to Lanzarote, Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Majorca, Algarve, Naples, Dalaman and Larnaca.

These are now available to book for travel between May and October 2019 and include flights with easyJet.

Thomas Cook UK managing director Chris Mottershead said: “We’re always looking for ways to make going on holiday easier and are excited to once again be offering Liverpool to our customers in the north west who want to get away from their local airport.”

(Travel Mole)