Easyjet to operate at 15% of schedule between April and June

EasyJet announced it expects to fly 15 per cent of its normal schedule between April and June, in a statement of its results released on Thursday.

The airline said it may increase capacity in or after June.

Johan Lundgren, chief executive of easyJet, said: “With leisure travel taking off in the UK again earlier this week where we are the largest operator to green list countries.

“With so many European governments easing restrictions to open up travel again, we are ready to significantly ramp up our flying for the summer with a view to maximising the opportunities we see in Europe,” Lundgren said.

“We have the ability to flex up quickly to operate 90 per cent of our current fleet over the peak summer period to match demand.

We know there is pent-up demand – we saw this again when green list countries were released and added more than 105,000 seats – and so we look forward to being able to help many more people to travel this summer,” he added.

EasyJet’s pretax loss widened to £701 million ($990 million) in the six months ending March 31, from £193 million in the year-earlier period affected only partially by the pandemic. Revenue fell 90 per cent to 240 million pounds on a similarly sharp decline in passenger numbers to 4.1 million.

Underlining the summer doubts, the airline gave no firm capacity plan for its July-September fourth quarter.

“Given the continued level of short-term uncertainty it would not be appropriate to provide any further financial guidance,” it said. The carrier said its cost-cutting programme was on track to save £500 million  this year.

Conditions are nonetheless ripe for a strong summer rebound. EasyJet said it increased capacity by more than 105,000 seats after publication of the UK green list – which triggered a UK-Portugal bookings spike. read more

“We know there is pent-up demand,” CEO Lundgren said.

($1 = 0.7087 pounds)