EasyJet to take out seats so it can fly with fewer crew

EasyJet will remove seats on some of its planes this summer in order to operate flights with fewer cabin crew.

The airline is trying to return to pre-pandemic levels of service.

EasyJet said it will be able to fly with three cabin crew instead of four if it takes out the back row of seating.

It would limit the number of passengers to 150.

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The required number of cabin crew is based on the number of seats rather than passengers, so flights would still meet the regulations.

Since the removal of UK Covid travel restrictions, airlines and airports in the UK have been struggling with staff shortages.

EasyJet and BA had to cut hundreds of flights last month because of the virus, which made it hard to maintain full schedules.

EasyJet is hiring new cabin crew to replace staff that was made redundant during the Pandemic. Staffing difficulties will continue for up to a year, according to experts.

The scheme to limit passenger numbers on the A319 will allow the airline to operate with more certainty. The change in capacity was small as a percentage of summer season passenger numbers.

EasyJet said it looked at a number of measures to strengthen its resilience. The company will put more resources into processing the accreditation of new staff, as well as removing seats.

EasyJet said it expects to be near the levels of flying in 2019. During the peak season, EasyJet flew 300,000 passengers a day.

The Advantage Travel Partnership, the UK's largest independent travel agent group, said the labour shortage was one of many factors affecting the travel industry.

She said that EasyJet was in a situation where it was stripping out seats to meet crew ratios.

The issue of meeting consumer demand to travel is only worsened by this.

Customers planning summer travel won't be affected by the sale of a maximum of 150 tickets because the last six seats are usually booked in the final days before departure, EasyJet said.

Passengers faced long lines at airports during the Easter travel peak. Karen Smart resigned as managing director of Manchester Airport.

The delays in obtaining security clearance for new airline staff meant that recruits couldn't begin training. Grant Shapps told the Transport Committee that airports will be allowed to begin training staff without security clearance.