LONDON – British low-cost carrier EasyJet has recently said they face an annual loss of £170-190 million for the twelve months to the end of September. Despite the rising costs of living, they also see great numbers together with demand for next summer season, being summer 2023.
Great sales numbers
EasyJet has recently said that bookings for the coming months are progressing well, as demand for travels holds up for the winter season as well as next summer, despite consumer spending after inflations and economic headwinds.
The airline is set to operate with 20 million estimated seats flown through the three months to December’s very end, marking a 30% increase compared to the same time of last year (2021).
EasyJet has also released word on their ticket sales for October’s school holiday and Christmas week, which are said to exceed EasyJet’s pre-pandemic levels, as the Covid-19 pandemic is barely in focus now in 2022.
In the season from which the carrier tends to make it’s most profit, being the last summer quarter, they said they would post adjusted earnings excluding some costs of up to £685 million. However, it turned out to be far from enough to offset the cancellations due to the Covid-19 pandemic from earlier in the year.
Despite all this, EasyJet are already seeing demand for Summer season 2023, making the carrier continue their hope despite the inflations and costs of living.
EasyJet Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Johan Lundgren commented, saying: “We face the uncertain macro-economic environment with many strengths,”
EasyJet’s 2022 Summer
After two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, restrictions for many popular tourist destinations were lifted, resulting in extreme travel chaos due to the lack of ground handling personell, airport and security staff. Looking at these factors which caused major disruptions, lost baggage and the “summer of hell”, how did EasyJet do, after two years in lockdown with restrictions, layoffs and the chaos itself?
Pre-summer, EasyJet started reducing seat capacity in order to fight the staff shortages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic itself. The reductions were by 6 seats on their A319 aircraft, which have a capacity of 156 seats.
However, per rules and regulations of the CAA and EASA, “One cabin crew member for every 50, or a fraction of 50, passenger seats installed on the same deck of the aircraft to be operated.“. Meaning that the EasyJet A319 flights could carry one crew member less than what is usually seen.
In the Summer 2022 season itself, EasyJet saw themselves reducing multiple routes as their staff shortages was still a pinching issue. All in one week, EasyJet saw multiple issues and disruptions both on ground and in-air, with themselves as the main focus.
During this “week form hell”, EasyJet saw travel chaos erupt at London Gatwick (LGW), including the death of a passenger who unfortunately fell down an escalator.
To this saddening event, EasyJet confirmed the tragic death, and commented: “A number of our cabin crew provided medical assistance to a passenger while waiting for paramedics to arrive. However, the passenger sadly later passed away. Our thoughts are with their family and friends.”
Also headline news regarding the carrier this summer, was one of their flights to the island of Menorca, Spain, which was intercepted by the Spanish forces due to a hoax bomb threat. The offender, a British man, had posted on a social media with a post containing info along the lines of a bomb being onboard.
To top this off, EasyJet also saw their COO (Chief Operating Officer), Peter Bellew, resign following the travel chaos affecting EasyJet. Peter Bellew spent time with Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair (FR) from 2017 to 2020 as their COO, before joining the EasyJet family.
Overall
Though the airline shows off great figures and seat number for the time period coming, an estimated annual loss of £190 million is by all means, not great, and will most likely have an impact on EasyJet. However, as we are, for some countries, still exiting the Covid-19 pandemic, the airline industry is still impaired by the effects of the pandemic.
All in all, we lost multiple airlines to the pandemic, and we might lose more as airlines are now also experiencing reduced demand due to inflation and rising living costs.
