2024-04-14 03:50:00
Summer 2024 is expected to be the best in EasyJet’s history. The British low-cost airline, which will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary next year, hopes for it and is preparing for it. At the Luton headquarters, the airport located less than an hour from London, its CEO, Johan Lundgren, is preparing to inaugurate the brand new operations center, still under construction, in around ten days. But part of the building is already occupied by the technical teams responsible for monitoring the 1,600 daily flights, their punctuality and their regularity, two arguments at the heart of the positioning of EasyJet, which paid its first dividend since the health crisis in 2023. . And achieved a turnover increase of 42% during its last financial year, to 9.51 billion euros.
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For this 57-year-old Swede, appointed head of the company in December 2017, the summer period – which runs from April to September in the airline sector – will be an opportunity to confirm the relevance of his strategic choices, after a year 2023 marked by the recovery of the carrier and its reduction in debt. “I am very confident, he assures, especially since our performances were phenomenal at Easter. We expect an 8% increase in short-haul sales this summer. None of our competitors will do better. The traditional companies will be between 2% and 3% increase, Ryanair at 7%. »
The reservations already recorded confirm his optimism. The number of passengers is expected to reach or exceed the level of 2019, the last year before the health crisis. Its competitors are facing headwinds at the same time. The Irish Ryanair, founded in 1984, the leading European company in terms of the number of daily flights (just ahead of its British rival), is suffering from the delay in delivery of the Boeing 737 Max and has had to revise its flight forecasts downward in result. Wizz Air, another more modest low cost, does have an Airbus fleet, like that of EasyJet, but equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines (those of EasyJet are produced by CFM International) which are experiencing manufacturing difficulties. .
“Global traffic had almost returned to its pre-pandemic level last year, with 4.3 billion passengers transported; this year, forecasts from Iata, the International Air Transport Association, reach 4.7 billion,” explains Paul Chiambaretto, professor at Montpellier Business School and director of the Pégase chair, dedicated to the economics of air transport. If the geopolitical context remains very tense, particularly in the Middle East, the low cost model, more fragile, “remains very adapted to periods of crisis and uncertainty”, help Paul Chiambaretto.
Air travel at its best
“Many experts predicted the decline in air travel after Covid, the opposite happened: demand has never been so strong despite inflation and pressure on the government. purchase “, insists Johan Lundgren. With an average price of around 70 euros per ticket, EasyJet is certainly more expensive than Ryanair, among other things because its employees are employed under local contracts, but remains much more affordable than traditional companies. This allows it to attract more and more business travelers (11.3 million in 2023), particularly in France on the Paris-Toulouse and Paris-Nice lines, thanks to its location in the main airports.
If the surprise strikes by air traffic controllers last summer in France had profoundly disrupted the punctuality of flights, the situation should improve this year, due to an absence of social movements during the Olympics. But also thanks to the warning, now obligatory, of forty-eight hours before the start of a strike. A measure requested by companies to be able to better anticipate flight schedules.
EasyJet in figures
336 planes
1 024 lines
155 airports in 36 countries
16 000 employees
1,600 to 2,000 flights per day
82 millions passengers in 2023
Next summer will also be an opportunity for Johan Lundgren to monitor the deployment of the new subsidiary, EasyJet Holidays. Former number two of the German tour operator TUI, the CEO of the company has wanted to diversify into the package holiday market for several years. The launch in the United Kingdom was delayed by the pandemic but the subsidiary proved itself in 2023 with a profit of 142 million euros, or a quarter of that of the company.
“Margins in the airline sector are very low due to heightened competition on plane ticket prices, explains Paul Chiambaretto. Companies are therefore banking on ancillary products, including payment for baggage or on-board supplements, or even hotel packages to improve their profits. » This is the bet of EasyJet Holidays, now accessible in France, Germany and Switzerland, with 5,000 four and five star hotels (3,000 in France for the moment) and 500 destinations in total. “We knew that 20 million of our passengers booked hotels independently of their plane tickets; offering them this service responds to a demand and a commercial strategy”, said the manager, who was a tourist guide at the start of his career. Faced with the debate on the negative effects of overtourism, Johan Lundgren defends his position: “Tourism is a source of income for local communities. A responsible development plan is needed so that they can fully benefit from it. »
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