EasyJet to cut nearly a third of workforce

EasyJet is looking to cut up to 30% of its workforce – around 4,500 jobs – to survive the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement came just days after staff received a ‘good news’ message from their CEO Johan Lundgren.

BALPA general secretary, Brian Strutton said: "EasyJet staff will be shocked at the scale of this announcement and only two days ago staff got a ‘good news’ message from their boss with no mention of job losses, so this is a real kick in the teeth. Those staff have taken pay cuts to keep the airline afloat and this is the treatment they get in return.

"EasyJet has not discussed its plans with BALPA so we will wait and see what impact there will be in the UK. But given easyJet is a British company, the UK is its strongest market and it has had hundreds of millions in support from the UK taxpayer, I can safely say that we will need a lot of convincing that easyJet needs to make such dramatic cuts.

"Indeed, easyJet’s own projections, though on the pessimistic side, point to recovery by 2023, so this is a temporary problem that doesn’t need this ill-considered knee-jerk reaction."

EasyJet is to resume limited flying next month, mainly UK and French domestic routes, and said further services would be added as demand increases and travel restrictions are lifted.

It said it expects to fly around 30% of its planned capacity in the last financial quarter of 2020.

In a regulatory update today Lundgren said: "We realise that these are very difficult times and we are having to consider very difficult decisions which will impact our people, but we want to protect as many jobs as we can for the long-term.

"We remain focused on doing what is right for the company and its long-term health and success, following the swift action we have taken over the last three months to meet the challenges of the virus. Although we will restart flying on 15 June, we expect demand to build slowly, only returning to 2019 levels in about three years’ time.

"Against this backdrop, we are planning to reduce the size of our fleet and to optimise the network and our bases. As a result, we anticipate reducing staff numbers by up to 30% across the business and we will continue to remove cost and non-critical expenditure at every level. We will be launching an employee consultation over the coming days.

"We want to ensure that we emerge from the pandemic an even more competitive business than before, so that easyJet can thrive in the future."