EasyJet to cut 30% of workforce in post-pandemic restructure

A UK airline has reported that it may be cutting 30 per cent of its workforce in its restructure.

EasyJet will resume flying on 15 June, but the company has said that its fleet size will be 51 aircraft smaller than anticipated, and that the reduction in headcount reflects this.

The exact amount of redundancies has not yet been confirmed, but at the beginning of the year the company employed 15,000 people - which would amount to 4,500 job losses.

The company has also said that it expects to fly around 30 per cent of the planned capacity flown in the final quarter of 2019, and it doesn’t expect to reach 2019 levels of market demand until 2023.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet CEO, commented: “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 per cent 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.”

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