23 March 2020

Covid-19: easyJet to ground majority of fleet from 24 March

Minimal schedule of essential services on some routes to, from and within the UK.

Following the country lockdowns, travel restrictions and changes to travel advice across its network, easyJet has taken the decision to ground the majority of its fleet of aircraft from Tuesday 24 March onwards.

easyJet will continue to operate rescue flights as required to repatriate customers and anticipate most of our rescue operations to be completed by Monday 23 March. Details of the rescue flights to repatriate customers can be found here: https://www.easyjet.com/en/policy/coronavirus-rescue-flights. If you are currently abroad, easyJet urge you to rebook yourself onto a rescue flight prior to Monday.

In addition, easyJet anticipate operating a minimal schedule of essential services on some routes. This will be a maximum of 10% of our usual capacity during this time of year and mainly routes to, from and within the UK.

easyJet will continue to review its flight schedule on a weekly basis to ensure that it matches current demand. With recent guidance, easyJet recognise many customers with existing reservations do not intend to travel, and so easyJet would encourage them to change their tickets for free now, as this will allow to best match remaining flying to the demand. easyJet continues to waive all change fees for customers who want to move their flight to a later date and they can now change up until 28 February 2021. Customers will be contacted directly if their flight is cancelled and will be provided with their options.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet CEO, said: “These are unprecedented times for the airline industry. We know how important it is for customers to get home and so are continuing to operate rescue flights over the coming days to repatriate them. Significantly reducing our flying programme is the right thing to do when many countries have issued advice to their citizens not to travel unless it is essential and the aircraft groundings will also remove significant levels of variable costs at a time when this remains crucial.”

Edited by Alisè Vitri