In a letter to the Financial Times in response to a recent article about flight disruptions "exposing" the carrier’s operating model, chief executive Johan Lundgren said the airline’s model was "far from being a weakness".

"Our model is simple — low fares and great service at Europe’s primary airports, where we provide outstanding value for our customers compared with higher cost legacy carriers," he added.

"Being at busy, slot-constrained airports means we have been affected during the unique period of industry operational challenges, perhaps more so than carriers flying out of less popular secondary and tertiary airports with more slack in their operations."

But he reassured customers the disruption was a "one-off", which "won’t last forever" and having 300 million European travellers living within an hour’s drive of easyJet’s airports is a "major competitive advantage".

"Many airlines’ shares have fallen significantly as a result of the pandemic but we have survived Covid-19 with one of the strongest balance sheets in European aviation," he continued. "Our business model has been the driver of significant long-term value creation in the past and will be so again in the future."