EasyJet plans to fly only 15% of pre-pandemic schedule

Airline says it can scale up schedule quickly if demand improves over summer months

EasyJet said it would fly about 15% of its pre-pandemic schedule in the three months to end of June. Photograph: David Parry/PA Wire
EasyJet said it would fly about 15% of its pre-pandemic schedule in the three months to end of June. Photograph: David Parry/PA Wire

British airline EasyJet said it would fly about 15 per cent of its pre-pandemic schedule in its third-quarter, with an expectation it would increase capacity from June onwards, after posting a first-half loss of £701 million.

“We have the ability to flex up quickly to operate 90 per cent of our current fleet over the peak summer period to match demand,” it said on Thursday.

The headline pretax loss for the six months to the end of March, was towards the upper end of its range of £690 million-£730 million.

EasyJet said it could not give any further guidance for full-year financial expectations, due to uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

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But it cautioned that the trend for late bookings due to last-minute changes to travel restrictions would affect load factors, a measure of how well airlines fill their planes.