easyjet finds Austrian EU solution
LOW-COST carrier easyjet will launch a new division in Austria aimed at shoring up its future post-brexit.
The airline, headed by Dame Carolyn Mccall, had already announced that it was seeking an air operator certificate, known as an AOC, on mainland Europe, which it said would enable it to continue flying intra-european routes if the UK and EU fail to strike a deal on aviation before March 2019.
There has been growing concern among airlines that a new deal, which would replicate current arrangements allowing flights between EU states, might not be in place before Brexit.
While goods exports would automatically fall under World Trade Organisation rules in the event of the UK failing to strike a trade deal, there is no such fall-back for the aviation industry, raising the prospects that flights could be grounded. However, easyjet said the accreditation process for the new licence was “well advanced” and would allow it to establish easyjet Europe in Vienna.
The staff and planes that will fly for easyjet Europe are already employed and based in EU27 countries, and the airline said that while some jobs would be created in Austria, none would be moved there from the UK.
Its Austrian AOC will sit alongside its existing UK and Swiss AOCS, owned by easyjet plc, which the company said would be EU owned and controlled but listed and based in London.