EasyJet removes seats from its planes to deal with staff shortages

Planes of the British company Easyjet parked at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on April 2, 2020 (Illustration).

REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In the United Kingdom, the airline EasyJet has found a solution so that each flight requires fewer stewards and air hostesses. 

Advertisement

Read more

Boarding 150 passengers instead of 156 doesn't seem like much, but for EasyJet, it's a big saving.

This summer, each British plane of the low-cost airline will carry only three crew members, instead of four currently.

This adaptation is in accordance with British civil aviation rules.

There will be the minimum number of personnel required on board each aircraft.

Namely one crew member for 50 passengers.

The objective is thus to save personnel.

A third of the workforce made redundant in 2020

In May 2020, due to the pandemic, EasyJet had laid off nearly a third of its workforce.

Last month,

after a wave of Covid-19 among employees, but it is unclear whether these flight cancellations could have been avoided with more staff.

In February, EasyJet announced that it was setting up a training program for young pilots with the objective of hiring 1,000 people between 2024 and 2027. But not enough to solve the urgent staff needs as summer approaches .

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Transportation

• UK

• Economy