Easyjet moves to ground its entire fleet

It seems that Covid-19 has hit easyJet hard – with the airline choosing to ground its entire fleet.

EasyJet Airbus A319 climbing out of Manchester Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond

easyJet operates a fleet of 337 Airbus A320 family narrow-body aircraft – however as a result of the travel restrictions and lock-downs across various countries – the airline has chosen to ground its entire fleet.

A week before, the airline chose to ground 90% of its fleet and help with repatriation efforts. The airline operated more than 650 rescue flight, returning home more than 45,000 customers. The last of these rescue flights were operated on Sunday 29 March.

The airline will continue to work with government bodies to operate additional rescue flights as requested.

However, the airline is blunt in its assessment of when it will fly commercially again,

At this stage there can be no certainty of the date for restarting commercial flights. We will continuously evaluate the situation based on regulations and demand, and will update the market when we have a view.

We continue to take every action to remove cost and non-critical expenditure from the business at every level in order to help mitigate the impact from the coronavirus. The grounding of aircraft removes significant cost.

In terms of cabin crew, easyJet and Unite have agreed that on furlough arrangements for its cabin crew. The agreement will be effective from 1 April 2020 for a period of two months and means that crew will be paid 80% of their average pay through the Government job retention scheme.

Cabin Crews have also been invited to help with the Nightingale Hospitals (the UK field hospitals) that are being set up to support the UK outbreak of Covid-19.

In quotes

Johan Lundgren, easyJet CEO said:

“I am extremely proud of the way in which people across easyJet have given their absolute best at such a challenging time, including so many crew who have volunteered to operate rescue flights to bring our customers home. We are working tirelessly to ensure that easyJet continues to be well positioned to overcome the challenges of coronavirus.”

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