British low-cost airline easyJet plans to cut up to 30 per cent of its staff, or 4500 jobs, and shrink its fleet, to fit the smaller market it expects to emerge from the COVID-19 collapse of air travel.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
EasyJet, employing more than 15,000 people in eight countries across Europe, said it would launch a consultation process with staff in coming days, acting later than many of its airline peers to announce job cuts as a result of the pandemic.
The coronavirus has brought airlines across the world to their knees, grounding planes and forcing them to make tens of thousands of job cuts as they prepare for a travel market which will take three years to recover.
Ryanair, EasyJet's bigger low-cost rival, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have, in the past month, announced 18,000 job cuts between them.
Over the last month, easyJet has been grappling with an investor vote on management strategy as well as a cyber attack.
It said on Thursday it was planning to fly around 30 per cent of its capacity later this year, and it expected to shrink its aircraft numbers to around 302 planes, about 51 aircraft lower than it had been planning for 2021 prior to COVID-19.
It said it was focused on taking out cost, and discussions with lessors to raise new funds were ongoing. Proceeds from those talks would be in the range of STG500 million ($A927 million) to STG650 million ($A1.2 billion), slightly higher than guidance given in April.
Australian Associated Press
