Low-cost airline Easyjet announced on Tuesday that it has reduced its loss for its staggered third quarter, but its result is weighed down by interruptions in its operations due, in particular, to the staff shortage that affects the sector.
The company posted a pre-tax loss of £114m for the period, an improvement of £204m on the same period last year, but weighed down by £133m from disruptions to its operations.
But these are “short-term” disturbances, says CEO Johan Lundgren in a press release, noting that during the quarter Easyjet “carried seven times more customers than in the same period last year”, that is, 22 million of passengers, and according to him “the operations are now normalized”.
Billing multiplied by 8
The company’s turnover increased eightfold to £1.8bn, flying faster than its costs, but more than tripled to £1.9bn.
The company had been struggling through long spring weekends with hundreds of flights canceled, largely due to a lack of employees, at a time when the airline industry saw an uptick in demand.
To avoid the chaos experienced by passengers at some European airports in recent months, Easyjet announced at the end of June a reduction in its transport capacity this summer, also citing the passenger caps imposed by Heathrow airports in London and Schiphol in Amsterdam.
Easyjet, in particular, had reduced its capacity to 87% of the pre-2019 pandemic level for its third quarter, and to 90% for its fourth, the summer holidays, when it expected to return to origin with 97% capacity.
‘Unprecedented’ recovery
Although demand is picking up, many companies in the aviation sector, companies or airports, especially affected during the pandemic, are struggling to hire staff quickly enough.
“The unprecedented recovery in demand in the airline industry, coupled with a tight labor market, has resulted in widespread operational challenges, leading to higher than normal levels of cancellations. Despite this, Easyjet operated the 95% of flights scheduled for the third quarter.” the company said.
The company has also been affected in recent weeks by a strike by its flight personnel in Spain that has resulted in several days of strike.
Source: BFM TV
