Firm wants to reduce £4.5bn in spending, including payments for new aircraft from Airbus

EasyJet has grounded its entire fleet of aircraft for at least two months and will seek to scale back plans for £4.5bn of spending, including payments for new planes from Airbus, in response to the collapse in demand for air travel because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The budget airline said it could not put a firm date on restarting commercial flights and 4,000 of its 9,000 UK staff will be furloughed, initially for two months, from 1 April.

Cabin crews drafted in to help at new coronavirus hospitals Read more

EasyJet also said it would seek to pay less for new aircraft after its founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, threatened to call repeated shareholder meetings to remove directors until the airline reconsidered buying 107 new aircraft from Airbus. The new Airbus planes are a major part of easyJet’s planned £4.5bn in capital expenditure up to 2023.

Haji-Ioannou, whose family holds 34% of the company’s shares, described the bill for new aircraft as “the main risk to survival of the company”. His demands came in a letter sent to the easyJet chairman, John Barton, on Sunday.

In response to Haji-Ioannou, easyJet said it was “working with suppliers to defer and reduce payments where possible, including on aircraft expenditure”.

The global airline industry is caught up in an unprecedented crisis, with companies laying off workers by the thousand, on the back of strict travel restrictions across most of the main air travel markets.

British Airways’ owner, International Airlines Group, on Monday said it had extended a $1.38bn (£1.09bn) credit buffer by a year to June 2021. The latest agreement with its lenders meant it had access to €9.3bn (£8.13bn) in cash, cash equivalents and loans, which it could use to ride out the crisis.

However, the almost total loss of revenues threatens the survival of many airlines. Loganair, the Scottish regional carrier, said on Monday it would be seeking government assistance beyond that offered to all British companies, despite the government’s insistence that it would not offer an industry-wide bailout.

Loganair’s chief executive, Jonathan Hinkles, told BBC radio: “I do think, that like the vast majority of UK airlines, we will be going back to take up that invite for further conversation with the Treasury in the coming days because we have to.”

Qatar Airways said on Sunday it would eventually need state aid, despite being one of the few global airlines continuing to run commercial scheduled flights, mainly to allow people to return home.

However, on Monday easyJet insisted it would not seek “bespoke” state aid after its chief executive, Johan Lundgren, said the airline might seek government loans on commercial terms, although the company did say it might use the government’s Covid-19 corporate finance facility.

Haji-Ioannou added in his letter that he did not support easyJet applying for government loans. He wrote that he would be willing to participate in an equity issue if the airline needed more cash – as long as the Airbus order were cancelled – but added that he would not return the dividend the airline paid shareholders this month.

“The point is that now easyJet needs more equity and all shareholders can decide if they want to invest again in the company to support it in return for new shares,” Haji-Ioannou said, in a second statement on Monday afternoon. “Not because of some random act of ‘charitable gift’.”

EasyJet had focused on repatriating customers in recent days after travel restrictions came into force across most of its main markets. However, the last of 650 repatriation flights ended on Sunday.

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Grounding the fleet removes “significant cost”, easyJet said. The move also means that furloughed staff in the UK will be paid 80% of their salaries through the government’s job retention scheme. There were separate arrangements with governments in other countries where easyJet staff are based, a spokeswoman said.

Many of the staff furloughed by easyJet, as well as Virgin Atlantic, will be drafted in to help in temporary “Nightingale” hospitals built to cope with a wave of thousands of expected coronavirus patients.

EasyJet has invited staff to volunteer for further training before helping out at the critical-care field hospitals in London, Birmingham and Manchester, while Virgin will contact 4,000 of its staff who may have the relevant skills needed to provide help.

British and Irish air industry in crisis response

The UK government has warned that it will not give a sector-wide bailout for airlines struggling with the coronavirus lockdown. However, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, indicated that the government would consider support on a case-by-case basis.