The English Airliner plans to combat a staff shortage by lessening the amount of people onboard their flights.
One of the major negative effects of the Covid pandemic that raged on over the past number of years fell on the shoulders of airline companies which saw increasingly decreasing service levels.
EasyJet is one of the companies that got hit badly by the pandemic via staff shortages. The airliner has announced that it will be removing the back row of seats from their line of A319 flights as a measure to lower the number of physical staff needed one each flight. By doing this, they’ll only have to fly three instead of four crewmates.
However, this would mean each plane would have a capacity of only 150 passengers.
The Civil Aviation Authority’s guidelines on the obligated number of cabin crewmates gives the company the leeway to do this move, as the number is dependent on the number of seats in the flight.
Struggling since Easter
The UK has seen staff shortages across airliners and airports since Easter, when demand for travel skyrocketed compared to months prior. Now that the United Kingdom’s restrictions have been removed, companies are finding themselves falling behind.
Companies like EasyJet had to cancel hundreds of flights back in April as they couldn’t keep up with their schedules. They’ve begun rehiring all-new cabin crew members to try and catch up, however analysts believe the staff issues won’t let up for at least the next year.
EasyJet believes the cut in passenger numbers will allow the company to operate a little more clearly, as the change is not going to be a massive one when compared to the demand for air travel during Summer. However, they’ll also be be pouring more investment and resources into the authorization process of their employees.
They plan to be close to 2019’s service levels by the Summer of this year; nearly some 300,000 passengers per day.
Disruptions for passengers
EasyJet stated that the final six seats, the ones to be removed, are booked in the last few days before take-off, meaning that their removal would not negatively affect their customers’ flight plans, especially during the Summer season.
However, Julia Lo Bue-Said believes one of the major factors affecting travel over the pandemic was the strong lack of employees. Bue-Said works for the Advantage Travel Partnership, the UK’s largest travel group.
“This only exacerbates the issue of meeting consumer demand to travel,” she said, regarding the company’s announcement.
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