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Highlights
- easyJet has terminated hundreds of flights because of rising levels of COVID-related sickness among its staff.
- On 4 April 2022, short notices for flight cancellation were served to passengers of 62 flights, after the termination of 222 flights over the weekend.
UK-based budget airline easyJet plc (LON: EZJ) has terminated hundreds of flights because of rising levels of COVID-related sickness among its staff. Over 280 flights have been cancelled by the group in the last three days.
On 4 April 2022, short notices for flight cancellation were served to passengers of 62 flights, after the termination of 222 flights over the weekend. Travellers are yet again dealing with the pandemic-related disruptions. As per a Sky News report, easyJet has blamed Covid-19 for the staff shortfall and inconvenience faced by passengers, but it is trying to prevent the shortages by rostering its backup team. Although, additional cancellation of flights did have to take place over the weekend, even after rostering.
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The Covid infection rate is rising across Europe, and thus businesses across the board are getting impacted by high levels of staff sickness. easyJet is also facing the same issues, but it is taking the necessary steps to lessen the impact of Covid-induced staff shortages by terminating some flights in advance and merging the flights with higher frequencies. This would help in reducing the difficulties faced by travellers by providing them with a wider range of options for booking their flight tickets again, generally on the day of cancellation itself.
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Travellers at the Heathrow and Manchester airports, which are among the UK’s top airports, were stranded in long queues, and the chaos forced the airline group to go for large scale flight cancellations. Reportedly, another major UK-based airline group British Airways has also cancelled a few flights due to staff sickness. Soaring oil prices have also taken a toll on the airline groups which are trying to cope up with the current situation, and the high costs may eventually be passed on to customers.
Performance update
The UK-based globally operating low-cost airline group, easyJet plc, is listed on the LSE’s main market since November 2000. With a market cap of £4,206.96 million, the shares of the FTSE250 constituent were down by 1.55% at around 2:00 PM (GMT+1) on 4 April 2022, at GBX 546.40.
The travel sector has been among the hardest hit sectors during the pandemic phase, and easyJet has been trying to cope up with the covid-related travel disruptions. Though, its performance has deteriorated and its returns on both one-year basis and year-to-date basis are negative as of 4 April 2022, at -45.98% and -1.81%, respectively.
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The revenue generated by easyJet over the last quarter of the 2021 financial year stood at £805 million, up from £165 million in the first quarter of the year. However, the earnings forecasts of the company may have to be dragged down if the flight cancellations keep taking place through the Easter weekend.
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Bottomline
The travel industry is yet again facing hurdles related to rising Covid cases, hurting both airline groups and travellers. As of now, its difficult to foresee the trajectory of the infection rate, but higher covid-related staff sickness could significantly impact the travel business that was trying to recover from the pandemic lows.
