Go will fly from East Midlands Airport to six destinations

Both British European and British Airways are also wooing Midland holidaymakers with promotional offers to several European destinations taking off from Birmingham.

Budget airline Ryanair already flies from Birmingham.

The airport's business development director told the BBC that he welcomed the competition.

"It's excellent news for the Midlands and it's excellent news for Birmingham Airport as well," said Peter Vella.

"The Midlands market has long been underserved by the aviation industry."

He said the airport had only been able to serve 40% of the people who wanted to use it because of limited capacity.

Promotional fares

"We are also finding that the airlines here are already promoting very, very low fares.

"They have been for a long time and the fares are no different to the fares that the low-cost airlines are offering - they're offering promotional fares as well."

However, a spokeswoman for Go dismissed its Birmingham-based rivals.

"Any airline can offer short-term promotional fares - the difference with Go is that we're in the business of giving people low fares all year round," she said.

"Over 55% of EMA passengers booked so far have paid our lowest fares."

Flights on the various airlines start as low as around �30 for a return.