Easyjet to ‘ramp up’ flights for summer holidays

Budget airline easyjet has said it is ready to “ramp up” services for the summer holiday season by offering more flights from late May after restrictions ease.

The carrier said it expects to fly up to 20% of 2019 capacity levels between April and June, with most countries planning to resume flying at scale in May.

The group flew just 14% of its 2019 flight programmes between October and the end of March.

It confirmed that it will slump to a steep first-half loss of between £690-£730 million for the six months to March 31, but said this is slightly better than it expected thanks largely to stringent cost-cutting.

It compares with half-year underlying pre-tax losses of £193m a year earlier.

The group burned through around £470m of cash during its second quarter to the end of December, which was lower than feared as it slashed costs by nearly 60% to about £854m.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said: “We continue to closely monitor the situation across Europe and, with vaccination programmes accelerating, most countries are planning to resume flying at scale in May.

“We have the operational flexibility to rapidly increase flying and add destinations to match demand, and easyjet is ready to resume flying, prepared for the ramp-up and looking forward to being able to reunite people with their families or take them on leisure and business flights once again.”

He reiterated calls for the government to cut the price of Covid-19 tests for air passengers, having previously said they sometimes cost more than easyjet’s tickets.