Category Archives: easyJet (UK)

Airbus delivers first FANS-C equipped A320 to easyJet

Airbus has delivered the first *FANS-C equipped A320 aircraft to easyJet. In the frame of Europe’s SESAR Air Traffic Management (ATM) research program, this aircraft – and others to follow – will take part in the Airbusled project: “Demonstration of air traffic management improvements Generated by 4D Initial Trajectory Information Sharing” (DIGITS) which will demonstrate the sharing of an aircraft’s predicted trajectory data with air traffic control (ATC).

Milestone marks the start of SESAR FANS-C demonstration by seven airlines
100 aircraft with FANS-C to demonstrate 4D initial trajectory sharing in Europe

FANS-C technology will enable airlines to optimise their aircraft’s trajectories and make traffic flows more fluid and aircraft speed easier to manage, which will help them to save fuel and reduce noise. In particular, the sharing of predicted trajectories with ATC controllers will enable smooth aircraft sequencing on approach and in the “Terminal Maneuvering Area”.

Hugh McConnellogue, Group Head of Network Operations at easyJet said: “We are very pleased to be the first airline to receive this new FANS-C technology in our Airbus aircraft – and to try it for real in the SESAR demonstration. Our early hands-on experience already indicates that it promises to be an important enabler to increase the efficiency, safety, and on-time performance of our expanding operations – especially in the congested European airspace.”

Jean-Brice Dumont, Executive Vice President of Engineering, Airbus Commercial Aircraft said: “We congratulate easyJet on the delivery of the first FANS-C equipped Airbus aircraft, which marks the start of this very large demonstration of 4D initial trajectory sharing across Europe.” He adds: “We are proud to lead this SESAR project and to play our part in helping ATM respond to the increase in air traffic volume while enhancing safety, and to bring about a positive environmental impact thanks to a more efficient ATM system.”

From now until mid-2020 seven European airlines, which are all taking part in DIGITS, will progressively equip up to 100 of their A320 Family aircraft with the FANS-C technology. The “Very Large Demonstration” (VLD) will last more than a year and collect data from over 20,000 revenue flights, allowing stakeholders to demonstrate benefits of this technology during live day-to-day operations.

Paving the way for start of the DIGITS operational phase and to ultimately deploy this technology across Europe and the rest of the world, Airbus achieved the world’s first certification of FANS-C ‘4D’ avionics on a commercial aircraft in November 2018 – the initial aircraft type being the A320 Family. Moreover, to complement the airborne FANS-C technology, air navigation service providers (ANSPs) throughout Europe will develop the respective ground ATC tools.

SESAR = “Single European Sky ATM Research”

*FANS-C is facilitated with two key components: “Automatic Dependent Surveillance Contract” (ADS-C) and “Controller-Pilot Data Link Communication” (CPDLC). ADS-C enables the automatic or on-demand transmission to air traffic control of the aircraft’s complete predicted four-dimensional aircraft trajectory (3D + time), while CPDLC facilitates the digital uplink of ATC orders and clearances. The benefits of FANS-C include: More accurate flight plans; more optimised trajectory computation and acceptance processes; better alignment of airlines’ and ATM planned trajectories; enhancement of aircraft traffic predictions and improvement of demand/capacity network calculations.

The seven airlines taking part in the DIGITS program comprise: Air France; British Airways; easyJet; Iberia; Novair; Thomas Cook; and Wizz Air.

For FANS-C capability on-board an A320 Family aircraft, the equipment required includes a new Data Link router (ATSU), an upgraded Flight Management System (FMS) and “DCDU” Data Link compatible cockpit displays. FANS-C will be first available on the A320 Family and subsequently on all other Airbus programs.

easyJet to partner with Cathay Pacific, now has 130 aircraft registered in Austria for Brexit

easyJet has made this announcement:

easyJet customers will be able to connect seamlessly between easyJet flights across its European network flying into London Gatwick Airport and onwards on Cathay Pacific flights, initially between London Gatwick and Hong Kong once it is live on Worldwide in the coming weeks.

Worldwide by easyJet has been consistently growing in popularity. Chicago is currently the most popular longhaul destination connecting through Rome while the Rome-Reykjavik connection is the most popular shorthaul connection. To date, more than 5,000 unique origins and destinations which have been booked in combination with partner airlines.

easyJet has leadership positions at more of Europe’s major airports and flies on more of Europe’s 100 largest routes than any other airline which makes it the most attractive European short haul airline partner. The introduction of this disruptive product opens up new 70m market segment for easyJet.

This addition of Cathay Pacific compliments easyJet’s existing relationships with long haul carriers Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, Norwegian, WestJet and Singapore Airlines.

Worldwide by easyJet launched in September 2017 enabling customers to connect easyJet flights through London Gatwick to long haul flights, with launch airline partners WestJet and Norwegian. This quickly expanded to Thomas Cook Airlines, Corsair, La Compagnie and Loganair and the connections platform was extended to Milan Malpensa airport in December 2017. Virgin Atlantic and Emirates joined as partners in October 2018 followed by Singapore Airlines.

Worldwide by easyJet now connects to a total of 11 airports across Europe, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris CDG and Orly, which in addition to London Gatwick, Milan Malpensa, Berlin Tegel and Venice Marco Polo, means that over half of the airline’s flights – and 53 million easyJet customers a year – will be able to connect to airline partner services and other easyJet flights in a single booking through easyJet’s digital booking portal.

In other news, easyJet also reported on its financial performance through December 31, 2018:

easyJet has delivered a good performance in the quarter with robust customer demand driving passenger and ancillary revenue which is in line with expectations. Underlying revenue per seat was positive, including good ancillary revenue growth. This was offset, as expected, by the impact from last year’s one-off revenue benefits, the dilutive impact of flying at Tegel and new accounting standards delaying the recognition of revenue. easyJet has made good progress with its cost and operational performance but both were affected by the impact of drone activity at London Gatwick over the Christmas period.

Commenting; Johan Lundgren, easyJet Chief Executive said:

“easyJet has made a good start to the 2019 financial year with robust customer demand and ancillary sales, driving solid revenue generation. This was underpinned by good operating and on-time performance across the network, with the exception of the disruption caused by the Gatwick closures due to drone sightings. There has been be a one-off cost impact from this incident, but underlying cost progress is in line with expectations. I am proud of the way our teams worked around the clock to mitigate the impact of the incident and looked after affected customers.

“Recognition of the easyJet brand continues to grow. We made good progress on our strategic initiatives; holidays, business, loyalty and data during the quarter.

“For the first half of 2019, booking levels currently remain encouraging despite the lack of certainty around Brexit for our customers. Second half bookings continue to be ahead of last year and our expectations for the full year headline profit before tax are broadly in line with current market expectations.”

Revenue

Total revenue in the first quarter to 31 December 2018 increased by 13.7% to £1,296 million. Passenger revenue increased by 12.2% to £1,025 million and ancillary revenue increased by 19.9% to £271 million.

Passenger¹ numbers in the quarter increased by 15.1% to 21.6 million, driven by an increase in capacity² of 18.2% to 24.1 million seats which was slightly lower than originally planned due in part to the drone issues at London Gatwick and to late A321 deliveries from Airbus.

Load factor³ decreased by two percentage points to 89.7%, as anticipated, due to the one-off increase in prior year late demand and the dilutive impact of Tegel flying.

Total revenue per seat decreased by 4.2% at constant currency, in line with expectations. This performance has been driven by:

An increase in underlying revenue per seat of 1.5% due to:

– Robust underlying demand and disciplined capacity growth by competitors on easyJet’s markets, supported by easyJet’s increasing brand recognition

– Continued growth in ancillary revenue per seat through better bag and allocated seating sales

The negative impact from:

– The dilutive impact of first time flying in Q1 at Berlin Tegel (where the schedule is still in the early stages of optimisation)

– One-off benefits experienced in 2018 not being repeated:

Air Berlin and Monarch bankruptcies (Q1 2018 benefit of c.£30m)
Ryanair winter schedule cancellations last year (Q1 2018 benefit of c.£20m)

– The impact of the move to IFRS 15 accounting standards (c.£8m revenue impact in Q1)

– Cancelled flights and lost revenue resulting from the drone issue at London Gatwick (c.£5m revenue impact)

Cost

easyJet’s underlying cost performance has been solid and in line with expectations, before the cost impact of the drones at Gatwick. Headline cost per seat excluding fuel at constant currency increased by 1.0% in the quarter reflecting:

– A £10 million cost impact of the drones at Gatwick relating to customer welfare costs (representing c.1ppt of cost per seat in Q1). The incident affected around 82,000 customers and led to over 400 flights being cancelled

– Annualisation of crew pay deals; better than expected crew retention; and some additional inefficiency relating to Gatwick disruption

– Ownership costs reflecting new aircraft year on year, some additional leasing costs resulting from late Airbus aircraft deliveries and the impact of IFRS 16 accounting

easyJet’s cost programme has continued to deliver substantial savings in particular in:

– Airport costs, driven by discounts on additional passenger volumes, and

– Fleet up-gauging from A319 ceo to A320 neo and A321 neo, albeit this has been marginally impacted by Airbus delivery delays

– Reduced level of cancellations and delays over 3 hours despite the drone issue at Gatwick

Customer and operational performance

easyJet has improved its On-Time Performance (OTP) since the difficult 2018 summer. The closure of Gatwick airport due to the drone issues had a negative impact on OTP but after adjusting for this December network OTP was better at 81%.

OTP % arrivals within 15 minutes	Oct	Nov	Dec	Q1
Q1 ’19	76%	86%	77%	79%
Q1 ’18	81%	88%	74%	81%

Traffic statistics

As announced at the full year results in November, easyJet will now be reporting monthly passenger statistics within its quarterly reports. Load factor was slightly lower than Q1 2018 due to one-off prior year benefits and the dilutive impact of Tegel flying.

easyJet experienced 764 cancellations in Q1 2019 compared to 1,051 cancellations in Q1 2018, with the biggest number of cancellations due to the drone issue at London Gatwick.

	Oct	Nov	Dec	Q1
Passengers (‘000)	8,578	6,182	6,831	21,592
Passenger growth	14.1%	15.6%	16.1%	15.1%
Load factor	90.5%	89.2%	89.2%	89.7%

Sale and Leaseback

easyJet has entered into another planned sale and leaseback arrangement for 10 A319 aircraft which has generated £120 million in cash and further facilitates our fleet management strategy. Six were completed during the quarter and a further four were finalised on 8 January. This will be disclosed as a non-headline item in the income statement and is currently expected to be a small loss on disposal.

Brexit

easyJet is well prepared for Brexit. It now has 130 aircraft registered in Austria and has made good progress in ensuring it has a spare parts pool in the EU27 and in transferring crew licences, both of which will be completed by 29 March. Both the EU and the UK have committed to ensure that flights between the UK and EU will continue in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Routes from Vienna:

In order to remain owned and controlled by EEA qualifying nationals, as required by EU regulations, easyJet has a number of options, including the use of the provisions contained in its Articles of Association which would permit it to suspend rights to attend and vote at meetings of shareholders and/or forcing the sale of shares owned by non-qualifying nationals as well as other potential actions. easyJet has increased its ownership by qualifying EEA (excluding UK) nationals to around 49%.

Outlook

Despite the consumer and economic uncertainty created by Brexit, demand currently remains solid and forward bookings for the period after 29^th March are robust.

For the year ending 30 September 2019, easyJet expects:

Full Year capacity to grow by c.10%; H1 2019 growth of c.15%
With approximately 40% of forward bookings secured for the second quarter, revenue per seat at constant currency for the first half is expected to decrease by mid to high single digits. This update reflects:

– Continued positive underlying trading in line with Q1, but larger than previously anticipated phasing impact from H1 to H2 from the impact of new IFRS 15 accounting standards and the shift of Easter into H2. IFRS 15 is expected to have a negative impact of around £50 million in the first half and Easter is expected to have a negative impact of around £50 million in the first half. Both of these will reverse in the second half

– A more competitive market in Berlin as well as constraints on our ability to deliver network optimisation as quickly as anticipated. easyJet now expects a loss in FY 2019 in Berlin

Full Year headline cost per seat excluding fuel at constant currency to be circa flat (assuming normal levels of disruption), using new IFRS 15 and 16 accounting standards and including the £10m cost impact from the drones issue at London Gatwick
Full Year unit fuel bill is likely to be £10 million to £60 million adverse⁴. The total fuel bill is expected to be c.£1.46 billion, reflecting a reduction in the price of oil since November and continued higher carbon pricing.
Foreign exchange⁴ movements will have a c.£10 million adverse impact on headline profit before tax
easyJet expectations for the full year are broadly in line with current market expectations⁵

Top Copyright Photo (all others by the airline): easyJet (Europe) Airbus A320-214 WL OE-ICR (msn 6885) ZRH (Rolf Wallner). Image: 944772.

easyJet (Europe) aircraft slide show:

easyJet Gatwick statement for today

easyJet is planning to largely operate a full schedule of flights to and from London Gatwick Airport today, Saturday 22 December. This includes six flights delayed from the closure of the runway yesterday evening. We are experiencing some disruption due to crew being out of place, but we continue to do all possible to ensure we can get customers to their destinations at this important time of the year.

We are still advising all customers flying to and from London Gatwick today to check the status of their flight on our Flight Tracker www.easyjet.com/en/flight-tracker or via the app, before travelling to the airport, in case of further disruption.

The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew remains our highest priority.

easyJet orders additional 17 Airbus A320neo aircraft

Airbus has reached an agreement with easyJet that extends the airline’s fleet plans into 2023, exercising purchase rights to firm orders for 17 A320neo aircraft.

This takes its combined order for the NEO to 147 (including 30 A321neo) and means easyJet has ordered 468 A320 Family aircraft to date.

The aircraft are configured with 186 seats in a single class configuration and powered by CFM International LEAP engines.

easyJet currently operates a fleet of 316 A320 Family including 17 A320neo and three A321neo, making it the world’s largest airline operator of Airbus’ single aisle aircraft. easyJet serves over 130 European airports in some 31 countries operating over 1,000 routes.

The A320neo family is the world’s best-selling single aisle aircraft with more than 6,200 orders from over 100 customers since its launch in 2010. It incorporates latest technologies including new generation engines and Sharklet wing tip devices, which together deliver more than 15% in fuel savings from day one and 20% by 2020 with further cabin innovations. The A320neo also offers significant environmental performance with nearly 50% reduction in noise footprint compared to previous generation aircraft.

Top Copyright Photo (all others by easyJet): easyJet (UK) Airbus A320-251N WL G-UZHB (msn 7705) (NEO) ZRH (Rolf Wallner). Image: 943811.

easyJet aircraft slide show:

easyJet celebrates 15% of new entrant pilots being female with its 20% by 2020 target firmly in sight

easyJet has announced that it has reached a key milestone in its ambition to attract 20% of new pilots joining the airline to be women by 2020, having achieved a new high of 15% of new entrants to the airline being female, over the past financial year.

It comes at a time when only 5% of all pilots worldwide are female, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots. Of that, just over 450 of them have achieved the rank of captain – which means that almost every female commercial airline captain could fit onto an A380 aircraft.

When we launched the initiative to attract more women into a career as a pilot in October 2015, women only made up 6% of easyJet’s new pilot intake. As a result of the campaign in 2016, easyJet had doubled the intake to 12% and has been increasing ever since towards its ambitious target of 20% by 2020. When we set out the goal we expected that 20% would equate to 50 female pilots, owing to our growth, we have attracted more than 50 female pilots this year and now have more than 200 female pilots flying for easyJet.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet CEO, commented:

“It’s hugely encouraging to now see that of the new entrant pilots we have attracted over the past year that 15% are now female and that the ambitious goal of 20% is in our sights and we don’t plan to stop there! We continue to work hard to encourage more women to join this hugely rewarding profession and from a starting point of 6% in 2015 to 15% this year is a real achievement.

“As well as encouraging applications from women now, we also recognise we need to start young so that we can be simultaneously changing perceptions of the career and so improving the gender balance of the profession for years to come. That is why our pilots have completed more than 100 school visits last year and we signed up to sponsor the Girlguiding Aviation badge for Brownies to get girls interested in flight at an early age.

“I firmly believe that no other airline is doing more on this issue.”

Julie Westhorp, Chairman of the British Women Pilots’ Association (BWPA) commented:

“The BWPA are delighted that easyJet are maintaining the momentum in encouraging women to consider a career in aviation. Also to see that their Amy Johnson Initiative is beginning to show results. Their pilots continue to support our outreach work to encourage young people, male and female, to raise their aspirations and to change the perceptions of teachers and parents to realise that becoming a pilot is an achievable and rewarding career, whatever gender. With the global shortage of pilots there is no better time for airlines to realise that by encouraging women to apply they are expanding their recruitment pool to recruit the best person for the role, as evidence and history clearly shows that being a pilot is not a male prerogative.”

Earlier this year Captain David Morgan, Director of Flight Operations at easyJet, was named as an ‘Agent of Change’ by Management Today and the Women’s Business Council for leading real transformation at easyJet and in the aviation industry through easyJet’s Amy Johnson Flying Initiative.

In FY19 easyJet will recruit 460 new pilots to meet record demands for the airline for a third consecutive year, as its European network continues to grow. Opportunities range from cadet pilots starting their career to experienced co-pilots and captains from other airlines and the military.

Photo: easyJet.

easyJet and Virgin Atlantic become partners

easyJet has today made this announcement:

easyJet, Europe’s leading airline, has today announced that it has signed up Virgin Atlantic as a new airline partner to its unique connections service ‘Worldwide by easyJet’

This means that from today easyJet customers can seamlessly connect through London Gatwick Airport between easyJet and Virgin Atlantic flights. This opens up new destination options via ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ which could see customers connecting from the likes of Barcelona through to Orlando and Edinburgh to Las Vegas. Other Virgin Atlantic destinations now available also include Las Vegas, Antigua and St Lucia.

Worldwide by easyJet has been consistently growing, with more than 4,000 unique O&Ds which have been booked in combination with partner airlines.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet Chief Executive Officer said:

“We are really pleased to welcome Virgin Atlantic to ‘Worldwide by easyJet’. Given we both serve many popular destinations from London Gatwick, we are confident their addition to Worldwide will be very popular with our customers.

“We have been delighted with the appetite of partner airports and airlines to expand Worldwide across our network and continue to broaden our focus to launch more airline partners and add connectivity to more of our biggest airports. Tens of millions of connecting passengers travel each year with journeys which begin or end in Europe.

“Because of easyJet’s reputation for great customer service and our strong positions at Europe’s leading airports, a large number of different airlines as well as airports have been asking to work with easyJet for some time and we expect to announce more partners in the coming months.”

Craig Kreeger, CEO at Virgin Atlantic commented;

“Virgin Atlantic is committed to working with the best possible global partners, to offer industry leading choice and connections for our customers. easyJet’s unbeatable Gatwick network, combined with a shared customer centric ethos, makes them the ideal fit for us. We’re delighted that customers across the UK and Europe will be able to enjoy more choice when connecting onto our flights through Gatwick and we look forward to welcoming them on board very soon.”

This addition compliments easyJet’s existing relationships with Norwegian, WestJet, Thomas Cook Airlines, Corsair, La Compagnie, Aurigny and Loganair who are already part of ‘Worldwide by easyJet’.

Earlier this month easyJet announced that Singapore Airlines and its low cost subsidiary airline Scoot will join the ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ global connections service, connecting easyJet customers with South East Asia with Singapore Airlines via Milan Malpensa airport and with Scoot through Berlin Tegel. The service is expected to be available within the coming months.

easyJet will continue sign up other airlines to ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ during 2018, with talks progressing with middle and far-eastern carriers amongst others and the airline also plans to expand to other key easyJet airports in Europe.

Worldwide by easyJet explained

‘Worldwide by easyJet’ launched in September 2017 enabling customers to connect easyJet flights through London Gatwick to long haul flights, with launch airline partners WestJet and Norwegian. This quickly expanded to Thomas Cook Airlines, Corsair, La Compagnie and Loganair and the connections platform was extended to Milan Malpensa airport in December 2017.

In March 2018 easyJet announced that it was extending its ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ connections platform to Berlin Tegel, Venice Marco Polo, Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Orly and Edinburgh airports. Venice and Berlin Tegel are now fully operational meaning that, combined with the connections already announced through London Gatwick and Milan Malpensa, over half of the airline’s flights – and 53 million easyJet customers a year – will be able to connect to airline partner services and other easyJet flights in a single booking through easyJet’s digital booking portal.

It is the first global airline connections service by a European low fares airline. Worldwide by easyJet offers self-connect and sales partnerships through a digital, virtual hub simply and efficiently.

All of this connectivity has been enabled by technology partner Dohop whose innovative platform allows easyJet customers to book connections and forward flights on easyJet.com. Worldwide by easyJet will also allow easyJet passengers to connect with other easyJet flights through partner airports.

Worldwide by easyJet does not impact easyJet’s punctuality, its asset utilisation or operating model. The airline will not hold flights for connecting passengers. Worldwide by easyJet is subject to a 2 hour 30 minute ‘Minimum Connection Time’, which will give customers plenty of time to transfer between flights and/or terminals. Should a passenger miss a connecting flight they will be transferred to the next available flight.

Photo: easyJet.

easyJet flies record number of passengers for busiest day

easyJet welcomed over 330,000 passengers on its flights last Friday (September 14, 2018) in the busiest day in the airline’s history, with more than 1,941 flights taking off across its network.

This compared to 2017’s peak summer travel day on September 8, 2018 when more than 267,000 customers flew across the network.

In the UK alone, over 170,000 passengers flew to or from easyJet’s UK airports on over 1,007 flights setting another record for the most customers travelling with the airline on one day.

Barcelona, Faro, Malaga, and Palma de Mallorca topped the list of most popular destinations.

Photo: easyJet.

easyJet partners with Singapore Airlines to connect travellers between Europe and South East Asia with ‘Worldwide by easyJet’

easyJet has made this announcement:

easyJet has announced that Singapore Airlines and its low cost subsidiary airline Scoot will join the ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ global connections service, connecting easyJet customers with South East Asia with Singapore Airlines via Milan Malpensa airport and with Scoot through Berlin Tegel. The service is expected to be available within the coming months.

‘Worldwide by easyJet’ launched last year as the first ever low-fares carrier connection service and will now for the first time offer customers both a low-fares connection to Asia through Scoot, as well as the choice to connect with a full-service carrier through Singapore Airlines, named as the World’s Best Airline 2018. Singapore Airline group’s combined network connects over 135 destinations in more than 35 countries across five continents, with a combined fleet of over 180 aircraft.

Singapore Airlines and Scoot join other ‘Worldwide’ partner airlines Thomas Cook, Norwegian, WestJet, Loganair, La Compagnie, Corsair, Neos and Aurigny. 53 million easyJet customers a year will be able to book connecting flights with these airlines through the easyJet website to around 100 destinations across North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean and soon to South East Asia with Singapore Airlines and Scoot.

Tens of thousands of easyJet customers are using Worldwide to connect through easyJet’s biggest European airport hubs including Gatwick, Milan Malpensa, Berlin Tegel and Venice Marco Polo, with the service due to go live in the coming months at Paris Charles de Gaulle, Paris Orly, Amsterdam Schiphol, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Worldwide by easyJet

‘Worldwide by easyJet’ is the first global airline connections service by a European low fares airline. Legacy airlines have traditionally offered connectivity through costly and complex interline and codeshare agreements and procedures. With ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ these will be replicated by self-connect and sales partnerships through a digital, virtual hub which will offer the same sort of connectivity but more simply and efficiently.

Top Copyright Photo (all others by easyJet): easyJet (UK) Airbus A320-214 WL G-EZTT (msn 4219) BSL (Paul Bannwarth). Image: 943445.

easyJet aircraft slide show:

easyJet launches first flight to Bordeaux from London Southend Airport, will hire 1200 cabin crews

easyJet has launched its first flight from London Southend Airport to Bordeaux in South West France. The route took off on July 25 is the first of four to launch this summer and will be supported by the arrival of a new aircraft at the base.

Operating three times a week, easyJet expects to carry out more than 30,000 passengers on the new Bordeaux route operating on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

easyJet is also set to launch new routes from Southend to summer holiday favourites Prague, Pula and Dubrovnik this summer helping to ensure the airline will carry over one million annual passengers to and from the airport for the first time this year with a 25% year on year rise in passenger numbers.

easyJet now operates 20 destinations from London Southend.

In other news, easyJet has also announced that it is to recruit more than 1200 new permanent and fixed term cabin crew positions, over half of which will be based in the UK.

The airline, which flies more than 300 aircraft on over 1000 routes in 33 countries, will offer its new cabin crew positions at some of easyJet’s largest bases across Europe. New recruits will fly on a modern fleet of Airbus, including the A321neo, and will have access to a number of rewards, high quality training and opportunities for career development.

The recruitment announcement follows the recent launch of easyJet’s cabin crew apprenticeship scheme, offering 25 apprentices a year-long programme combining training at easyJet’s Gatwick academy and on the job experience. easyJet was the first airline in the UK to offer apprenticeships under the new Government apprenticeship standards.

easyJet currently employs over 8,700 cabin crew who are at the forefront of the airline’s operations, ensuring the highest safety standards are met and providing friendly service for easyJet’s 90 million passengers every year.

Photos: easyJet.

easyJet passengers can now check-in luggage from home

easyJet, Europe’s leading airline, has launched a partnership with home bag drop service AirPortr, giving passengers travelling from London Gatwick the option to check their luggage in online and then have it collected from their doorstep by friendly, professional drivers and taken directly to the airport

Research shows that over three quarters of travellers would prefer to be luggage free for the day of their flight, which is why easyJet and AirPortr have partnered to provide this service allowing travellers start their trips at home.

AirPortr will pick up luggage from the passenger’s doorstep, and safely deliver it to easyJet’s bag drop before it is flown to one of the airline’s 110 destinations from Gatwick. Customers can then collect their baggage at their destinations baggage reclaim.

Since 2016, AirPortr have collected over 69,000 bags, skis and bikes which have been checked-in and delivered to more than 320 destination airport baggage reclaims around the world. easyJet is confident this new service will help make travelling even easier for its passengers.

The service is available for flights to any of easyJet’s destinations across Europe from London Gatwick, the airline’s biggest UK base. The premium product allows passengers to check in a piece of luggage and choose a 1 hour pick-up time slot for as little as £30. Alternatively, a £40 value product offers tremendous value for money, and includes collection of up to 4 pieces of luggage within a 3 hour window.

Photo: easyJet.