LONDON – easyJet CEO Johan Lundgren has today called on the UK Government to tell the industry where it can and can’t fly to immediately, following the decision to unveil the traffic light system on May 10, just a week before international travel is set to launch.
Lundgren commented on why the industry needs to know what is going to end up in green, amber and red.
‘You can understand why governments around the Mediterranean are so focused on this, because they recognize that if they are in the amber or red category, it will have a massive impact on their infrastructure, on the local hotels, bars, and restaurants.’
‘We are coming into the summer pretty soon – there is not a lot of time to waste. People want to know what they can or can’t do. That’s why we are urging the Government to come out with additional information as soon as it can.’
‘Our industry has suffered the most and it will be the slowest to recover from the crisis. There are reasons to argue there has not been enough direct financial support to this sector.’
Johan Lundgren, CEO of easyJet
easyJet are set to announce a trading update on Wednesday, regarding the state of the company. All eyes will of course be on the carrier following a £1.3 billion pre-tax loss made over the year to September 2020.
Analysts are expecting easyJet to be around £700 million in debt for this financial year, meaning that the airline is staking everything on a Summer re-launch.
The last 12 months for the carrier have not been easy, from shareholder turmoil over uncancelled aircraft orders, to cutting down a lot of its portfolio to keep losses down.
It will be interesting to see whether the government will announce the traffic light system any earlier, and if so, whether it will be the news that the industry is looking for.
