Great news for holiday makers in the London region as Stansted airport launches 2 new routes ready for the summer season travelling to Greece and Turkey.

Stansted has increased in popularity over the years and is now one of the main travel hubs in London with major carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair operating regular budget flights to Europe. Now, following a successful European launch last year by Easyjet, three new airlines plan to establish weekly flights to top holiday destinations in Greece and Turkey.

The four new flights are a cheap flight service by Ryanair travelling to the Greek mainland airport Thessaloniki and a direct flight service to the ever popular Greek island of Rhodes. Turkey sees two lesser known flight operators with Pegasus airlines flying to Izmir in Turkey and linking the airport with the popular Turkish region of Ankara is Anadolu Jet.

Director of travel for Greek travel agency Kefalonia.co.uk Russ Beech was quoted as saying “this is exactly what Greece needs at the moment. Following their economic crisis hotel prices are really cheap and they continue to drop prices to encourage tourism. This is a smart move by airlines looking to take advantage of the increased interest in European travel.”

No launch date has being set for the first flights on these routes although it is believed that they are aiming for an early Summer launch in 2011.