The airline’s passenger numbers fell 89% in H1 to just 4.1 million; it current expects to operate at around 15% of 2019 capacity in the third-quarter, but said it had flexibility to quickly put more flights on to capitalise on travel opportunities during the lucrative summer months of Q4.
EasyJet is expecting capacity to increase from June onwards as travel restrictions on the continent ease, although it said the constant chopping and changing of travel restrictions in response to incidence of Covid-19 infection would likely result in the airline operating with lower than optimal load factors.
"Late announcements of changes to travel restrictions will impact load factors due to late capacity additions/cancellations to meet surges in demand, driving an even later booking behaviour," said easyJet.
"We maintain significant flexibility to ramp capacity up or down quickly depending upon the unwinding of travel restrictions and expected demand, with the flexibility to maximise European opportunities.
"This ramp-up will involve increased variable costs during Q3 as we bring pilots and crew off furlough in readiness for the peak summer season in Q4. We remain focused on a disciplined schedule of cash generative flying."
EasyJet said the results, which also saw total revenue fall 90% to £240 million, were "in line with expectations", and also stressed it had managed to save more cash during H1 than initially forecast; total liquidity raised by easyJet during the pandemic now runs to in excess of £5.5 billion, with unrestricted access to £2.9 billion if needed.
It is looking to have saved a total of around £500 million by the end of its full financial year (12 months to the end of September).
Chief executive Johan Lundgren said: "With so many European governments easing restrictions to open up travel again, we are ready to significantly ramp up our flying for the summer with a view to maximising the opportunities we see in Europe. We have the ability to flex up quickly to operate 90% of our current fleet over the peak summer period to match demand.
"We know there is pent-up demand, we saw this again when green list countries were released and added more than 105,000 seats, and so we look forward to being able to help many more people to travel this summer."
