EasyJet chief battles covid crisis and Stelios, but finds common ground with arch rival Ryanair

The chief executive of easyJet today added his weight to Ryanair’s objection to the idea of leaving the middle seats free in his planes in order to meet social distancing rules.

The idea emerged last week and appeared to be under consideration by EasyJet but it was quickly scotched by Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary, who said he would not be able to make enough money for flying to be worthwhile.

Johan Lundgren told the Evening Standard the idea had been floated as one of many from regulators trying to find a way to get airlines flying again. While easyJet would consider going along with the idea in the early weeks of the return to flying if bookings were low anyway, he said it would never work for longer than that.

“I agree with Michael [O’Leary]. This would totally change the business model. More importantly, whatever happens, we need to go with the evidence of the medical science and I can’t see how this would be an effective way of socially distancing. If you’re sitting in the window seat how can you possibly make sure the other person keeps two metres away from you?”

However, he said it was positive that regulators were considering all options and that they had been accelerating their planning on how to get flying started again in the past 10 days.

“This is good, but first and foremost, we have to make sure the start-up date is orderly and well thought through. We don’t want to have a situation where the industry comes back but then they bring in more restrictions after that.”

He also called for the approach to be consistent among all countries.

He said easyJet’s fleet could be ready to resume flying with two weeks’ notice.

“It is pretty surreal to be running an airline when you can’t fly,” he said.

Lundgren was speaking as easyJet published its official notice to hold a general meeting of shareholders on 22 May for them to vote on founder and rebel shareholder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s resolutions to remove him, chairman John Barton, finance director Andrew Findlay and independent non-executive director Andreas Bierwirth.

Sir Stelios, who owns 35% of the company’s shares, wants to evict the directors and force through his long-held proposal that it pulls out of a longstanding plane supply deal with Airbus.

In a rebuttal to Sir Stelios’s proposals, the company said terminating the deal would subject the airline to “significant financial and operational risk”. This was because it would require a lengthy legal fight and destroy its relationship with one of only two suppliers in the world.

Sir Stelios only has to win the approval of 50% of shares casting votes, piling huge pressure on the board to mobilise their supporters in the shareholder base.