LONDON (Reuters) -British airline EasyJet stated it expected to begin to fly more from late May onwards and that by then most European nations should be open to British holidaymakers, painting an optimistic picture about the return of the travel.
In Britain, EasyJet’s biggest market, uncertainty remains about when travel can resume and which nations will feature on a green list of low-risk destinations.
The government has stated it will present more information in early May and the earliest date for travel to restart is May 17.
EasyJet’s chief executive Johan Lundgren stated most of Europe would be open for travel this summer, shrugging off worries about the third wave of COVID-19 infections on the continent.
“I would expect that almost all major European nations, that by the time it comes to travel reopening, that most nations in Europe need to be in that category,” he stated of Britain’s green list.
Travel industry experts have been less optimistic, saying that green list travel could be restricted to Iceland, Malta, and Israel, nations which have made more progress with vaccination programs than Europe’s big leisure destinations like Spain, Italy, and France.
EasyJet urged the government to publish its green list as soon as possible, saying that the big question its customers had been asking was where they could go.
The airline also repeated criticism of the UK’s plan to make PCR tests for COVID-19 a requirement for the journey to green list nations, saying the high cost of tests could dampen demand.
For the April to end-June quarter, easyJet stated capacity would be at 20% of 2019 levels, but that would include lower levels in April and May before a jump in June.
Goodbody analysts said capacity could reach 35% to 40% in June.
Lundgren stated it was too early to forecast July capacity, noting that customer booking patterns were much later this yr. However, he stated the airline was able to ramp up flying shortly and had the flexibility to change its schedule depending on changing restrictions.
Flying has been severely curtailed because of the pandemic over the last 12 months and EasyJet flew just 9% of 2019 capacity within the three months ended in March when it burnt through 470 million pounds.
However better than expected cost reduction helped the company to forecast a pretax loss in the range of 690 million pounds ($950.41 million) to 730 million pounds for the six months ended March, better than a consensus forecast for a 752 million pound loss. The company is due to report first-half results on May 20.
EasyJet stated it was effectively positioned financially, with the liquidity of 2.9 billion pounds, has taken on new debts to assist it to survive the COVID-19 crisis.
Shares in EasyJet traded up 3% to 949 pence early on Wednesday. The stock has soared 91% over the last six months since vaccines brought hope that travel could resume.
