Flight schedule remains thinned: Easyjet writes losses for the first time

In the spring, the Easyjet fleet practically comes to a standstill. Only when the number of new corona infections falls does the demand for air travel recover. But that can by far not compensate for the minus posted by the low-cost airline. The company is still hopeful.

As expected, the corona pandemic brought the British low-cost airline Easyjet its first annual loss in its 25-year history. The prospects for winter remain bleak. Easyjet boss Johan Lundgren wants to offer a maximum of a fifth of the originally planned flight program in the current quarter. Most recently he had targeted a quarter.

The manager draws some hope from the positive news about a possible vaccine against the coronavirus. Easyjet remains flexible in order to increase the flight offer again when demand increases, the company announced. After the business figures were announced, Easyjet shares temporarily lost more than five percent.

In the past financial year until the end of September, the slump in air traffic as a result of the pandemic tore the low-cost airline deep into the red. The bottom line was a loss of almost 1.1 billion British pounds (equivalent to 1.2 billion euros) after a profit of 349 million pounds in the previous year. Easyjet published the first key data back in October. Due to the pandemic, the management is not in a position to make an earnings forecast for the new financial year. Easyjet is trying to limit the losses in the cold half of the year, it said.

In the past fiscal year, the number of passengers fell by half to a good 48 million as a result of travel restrictions and the collapse in demand. The second half of the business year, which at Easyjet runs from April to September, was particularly affected. In the months of April to June, the fleet was practically at a standstill and even after that, demand only recovered slightly, before falling again in the wake of increasing numbers of infections and new travel restrictions.