Flexi fares, which cost from £79 one way, include ticket flexibility allowing the passenger to change the date of their flight up to two hours before departure, choice of seating and “speedy boarding” at the gate.

Fast track will be available at 27 airports initially and at more destinations across the network over the coming months. The airline’s headquarters airport of Luton, which has its own paid fast track option, is not on the initial list.

Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s CEO, said, “Building on that platform we want to give [business travellers] other services that they truly value and which we can deliver without changing our simple efficient operations. Allocated seating is a good example of something our business passengers told us they really wanted and that we have been able to manage while maintaining our industry leading punctuality. By teaming up with our airport partners we can now offer fast track security which enables time sensitive business travellers to reduce their journey time through the airport.”

The airports in phase one are Gatwick, Southend, Stansted, Liverpool, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the UK plus Rome Fiumicino, Milan Linate, Milan Malpensa, Venice Marco Polo, Athens, Budapest, Munich, Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Prague, Tallinn, Geneva and Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, Paris CDG and Orly.

The airline has public sector deals in place for the MOD, the Houses of Parliament and the Scottish Government.

The proposals are for consultation and the CAA has devised a different plan for each of the London airports depending on its view of each’s “market power”.

It proposes a traditional price control mechanism at Heathrow which it describes as having “substantial market power”. However, in capping charges at the retail price index minus 1.3% for five years from April, this increase will be significantly less than the steep hikes that Heathrow’s airlines have experienced during the past five years.

Its proposal for Gatwick also says that it believes that despite the airport because less dominant than Heathrow it is still has market power because “neither low cost carriers nor full service carriers can easily switch to other airports”. It has suggested a flexible approach whereby Gatwick must satisfy the Authority that it is collaborating with its airlines over service levels and pricing but says that if this is not achieved, it will cap Gatwick’s price increases at RPI plus 1% for the next five years.

Stansted is judged to be least powerful but the CAA believes this is likely to change so has given Stansted flexibility with the proviso of a watching brief and the right to increase a cap unless prices decrease over time.

Airline chiefs reacted with anger to the proposals. IAG, owner of British Airways and Iberia, chief executive Willie Walsh said, “Heathrow airport is over-priced, over-rewarded and inefficient and these proposals, which will result in an increase in prices, fail to address this situation.

“In the past the CAA has rewarded Heathrow for inefficiency and it is now the most expensive hub airport in the world.  Its charges have tripled in the last 11 years with inflation busting increases year-on-year.

“The Gatwick proposals, which will result in a significant increase in charges, are completely unjustifiable, totally unacceptable and directly contravene the CAA’s new remit to represent customers’ interests.”

Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are the only UK airports for whom the CAA is allowed to regulate the fees the owners are allowed to charge airlines. In the past five years fees at Heathrow were capped at RPI plus 7.5%.

Norway will be the airline’s 33rd destination and the carrier predicts it will carry more than 100,000 passengers between Norway and the UK annually.

Fares on the new route between London Gatwick and Bergen will start from £35.49 one way including taxes.

easyJet’s UK director Paul Simmons said: “The addition of Bergen will see easyJet flying more than half a million passengers between the UK and Scandinavia, and will take the total number of routes served from Gatwick to 101 across 27 countries. We very much look forward to welcoming our first passengers from Norway onboard our flights in May.”

The fares were first introduced last month to the carrier’s routes between the London airport and Amsterdam (Schiphol), Dubrovnik, Jersey, Tunis and Turin.

Fares are on sale from today and apply to any flights from 2 April.

Examples of the new tariff include one-way “hand baggage only” fares to Glasgow and Genoa from £39.

Customers choosing the “hand baggage only” fare are eligible to carry on a case up to 56cm x 45cm x 25cm plus a handbag or laptop bag.

Peter Simpson, director of Gatwick for British Airways, said: “The new fares have been very well received by customers and we have now decided to make the discounted prices much more widely available.

“We are confident that they will prove popular during the busy summer season as short-haul customers continue to take advantage of our generous two-bag hand luggage policy. Those who still want to check in a bag will simply pay the same price they do now.”

Passengers on the fares will still be able to take one piece of luggage plus a handbag or laptop on board.

Peter Simpson, director of London Gatwick for British Airways, said: “The introduction of our hand baggage only fare is all about giving our customers more freedom to choose the kind of flying they want. The majority of British Airways customers on London Gatwick short-haul breaks are simply going from one point to another, rather than transferring, and many choose not to check in a bag as they’re already taking advantage of our generous two-bag hand baggage policy. Those who still want to check in a bag will simply pay the same price they do now.”

The airline is quick to state that this does not mean it is now charging ancillary fees for baggage. “British Airways will continue to offer shorthaul economy fares including a checked baggage allowance (one item at 23kg). Hand baggage only fares provide an additional lower cost choice for customers who do not wish to take checked baggage,” it said.

The hand baggage only fare is not available to those organisations on corporate net deals.

Flights start on Monday 18 March 2013 with a service leaving Gatwick at 0700 and arriving at Moscow Domededovo Airport at 1350; the return flight departs Moscow Domededovo Airport at 1430 and arrives into London Gatwick at 1540. From 15 April a second daily flight will operate departing London Gatwick at 1410 arriving into Moscow Domededovo at 2100, returning at 2140 and arriving into London Gatwick at 2250.

Paul Simmons, easyJet’s UK director, said: “Flights between Manchester and Moscow went on sale last month and have exceeded our expectations in terms of demand and we expect London to perform at least as well. Around a quarter of a million passengers will fly with easyJet between London Gatwick and Moscow in our first year of operations. We look forward to welcoming our first passengers onboard on 18 March.”

A report released today, Flying into the Future, argues that the runways must be built because of four “crunches”:

Current capacity at the five airports in the London area could be raised to 188 million at most through improvements to existing infrastructure. However, the DfT forecasts that by 2030 demand for these airports will reach 204 million passengers a year, rising again to 294 million by 2050.

Heathrow – the UK’s only hub airport according to the report – is already full in terms of air traffic movements. The airport has a legally regulated limit of 480,000 movements a year and in 2011 it handled 476,000. It also says that the number of destinations served from Heathrow has fallen from 227 to 180, compared with 313 at Schiphol and more than 250 at both Frankfurt and Charles de Gaulle airports.

The report also cited the barriers of the highest level of aviation taxes in the world and visas. It says that UK visas cost around 50% more than the Schengen visa for Europe, and the form contains twice as many questions.

In all, the report issues 25 recommendations, including the building of the new runways.

It said, “Heathrow should expand by one, or preferably two, runways. Heathrow is well located for road access and public transport from London via either the Heathrow Express or the Piccadilly line. Future infrastructure investment, particularly Crossrail and HS2, will serve to make the airport even more attractive for passengers.”

It said that a poll for the report revealed that 59% of IoD members say that a lack of spare capacity at Heathrow “damages inward investment”.

The Institute also suggests introducing competition to Channel Tunnel passenger services. The IoD says, “Eurostar has 80% of the market of passenger services between London and Paris and Brussels, and there is 50% spare capacity in the tunnel. Opening the tunnel to competition could reduce prices, mitigate the pressure on Heathrow and benefit the environment by shifting some traffic to European cities to rail.”

The transport select committee took evidence from aviation bodies for a report on the issues being examined by the Davies review of airport capacity.

Despite agreement that Heathrow is effectively full, Simon Buck, chief executive, of the British Air Transport Association, dismissed the idea that regional airports could be a significant alternative.

He told John Leech, Liberal Democrat MP for Manchester Withington: “You are starting from premise that it is feasible. Passenger usage shows 75-80% of passengers at Heathrow or Gatwick live in their catchments, or are visiting London, and it is not as simple as saying there is potential for regional airports to take up capacity.”

Sian Foster, general manager for government and external relations with Virgin Atlantic Airways, gave the example of why the carrier does not serve Hong Kong from Manchester despite apparently sound demand.

She said: “If the regional market is there we will deliver. But 90,000 people a year fly from Manchester to Hong Kong by different routes and our smallest aircraft has 250 seats.

“That adds up to 175,000 per annum, and to justify that route we need 80% load factor to break even, so there is a shortfall and until that market is big enough we cannot make it work.”

Foster said Virgin sought “one hub for the UK…an international scheduled carrier needs a hub and connecting passengers”.

But Paul Simmons, UK director of easyJet, said much of the capacity problem at Heathrow came from scheduled carriers choosing to serve short haul destinations so crowding out potential flights to China, Brazil and other emerging markets.

“To say capacity is scarce is a moot point,” he said.

Foster said a split hub, such as ‘Heathwick’ would not work as “if passengers go on a train to another airport that is very difficult to market to overseas visitors, you need connection times of under an hour plane-to-plane”.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said capacity issue should be solved by an immediate government commitment to build new runways at each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

He said this would solve capacity problems for “30 to 40 years” and called the idea of building a new airport such as ‘Boris island’ “insane, stupid and hare-brained”.

“A new airport where there is no infrastructure, no motorway or rail infrastructure is asininely stupid,” he said.

“London has benefit of multiple airports where you have travel infrastructure in place and land is available for three more runways.”

Dale Keller, the new chief executive of the Board of Airline Representatives UK said a survey of his members had shown that 86% would add capacity at Heathrow if it were as freely available as at other European hubs.

“Long haul into other airports simply not sustainable,” he said.

“Gatwick lost its links to Hong Kong and Air Asia X was not successful at Stansted. Only short haul can work from non-hubs.”

The airline’s services between Manchester and Heathrow will be unaffected and passengers booked onto the Gatwick service can be rebooked onto this at no additional charge (except for any transfers between Heathrow and Gatwick).

British Airways has run services on the route since 1992 when it acquired failing carrier Dan-Air, which itself had taken on the service from British Caledonian.

• Our next Engage conference takes place in Manchester on 22 November along with the inaugural Engage awards for buyers and suppliers of travel and fleet in the public sector. Find out more at www.publicsectortravel.org.uk/engage