EasyJet Grounds Entire Fleet Due to CCP Virus

EasyJet announced it has grounded its entire fleet of planes and said it cannot give a date for when they will restart.

The budget airline said in a March 30 statement it made the move due to the “unprecedented travel restrictions” imposed by governments globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since emerging in central China late last year, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus has spread around the world, infecting more than 720,000 and killing at least 34,000, also sparking widespread travel restrictions and lockdowns.

EasyJet said in the release it had already cancelled most services save for some rescue flights, which would stop running on Sunday.

“The last of these rescue flights were operated on Sunday, March 29,” the airline stated. “We will continue to work with government bodies to operate additional rescue flights as requested. At this stage there can be no certainty of the date for restarting commercial flights. We will continuously evaluate the situation based on regulations and demand, and will update the market when we have a view.”

In an earlier statement, EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said that “these are unprecedented times for the airline industry.”

“Significantly reducing our flying programme is the right thing to do when many countries have issued advice to their citizens not to travel unless it is essential and the aircraft groundings will also remove significant levels of variable costs at a time when this remains crucial,” he said.

EasyJet said it has flown 650 rescue flights so far, bringing over 45,000 people home.

The air carrier said it would lay off its 4,000 UK-based cabin crew for two months, meaning they wont work from April 1 but will get 80 percent of their average pay under a state job retention scheme.

Lundgren said he Read More – Source