Bungling Easyjet to axe flights

EASYJET, Europe's biggest budget airline, has admitted it does not have enough trained staff and has bungled a rostering system designed to cope with the huge growth in its passenger numbers. The airline now plans to cancel some flights, starting from next week, to ease the severe pressure on its pilots and cabin crew.

In a letter to pilots, easyJet's operations director, Vilhelm Hahn-Petersen, says the airline is 'stretched to the limit'. He wrote: 'It is very clear that the current situation cannot continue. Right now it feels soul destroying and the bottom line is we can now conclude that the 60% growth coupled with four new crew bases and lots of new routes has stretched us significantly. The combination of volume and complexity in the summer schedule has stretched us to the limit. I recognise that we need to scale back slightly to recreate stability.'

The Luton-based airline, founded by Greek millionaire Stelios Haji-Ioannou, bought its rival Go last week for £374m. It has set itself large expansion targets, which it must meet to stop another rival, Ryanair, from reclaiming the number one spot in Europe.

As Hahn-Petersen wrote the letter on Wednesday, directors were celebrating a 62% rise in passenger numbers last month. He said they recognised the strain employees were under and that more staff would be trained.

But last Sunday 19 flights had to be cancelled because easyJet did not have enough staff or extra aircraft when two planes developed technical problems. Thousands of passengers suffered delays and many abandoned their journeys.

EasyJet tried to blame air-traffic control problems but it later emerged that British Airways, which had five times as many flights that day, had not cancelled any flights because of air-traffic control. One easyJet pilot alleged the unfettered expansion of the company could lead to an accident.

He told The Times: 'I have repeatedly told managers the situation has become dangerous but their only concern is profits. They have pushed staff to the limits and now we are seeing the consequences. It would be terrible if it took a crash to force them to rein back on this breakneck expansion.'

An easyJet spokesman said: 'I'm alarmed if one of our pilots is saying those things. We have worked our pilots incredibly hard and made great demands on them in the past two months. We are negotiating with them over pay and they have rejected our first offer.'

He added: 'We shall be announcing shortly what flights will not be operating next week. They will be ones on which very few people will be travelling. This is not about staff shortages. We have introduced a new rostering system which is causing us all manner of problems. It's a rubbish system and we are changing it.'