The Air Operator Certificate (AOC) comes following a “rigorous and comprehensive year-long process” and will enable easyJet to continue to operate flights both across Europe and domestically within European countries after the UK has left the EU, regardless of the outcome of UK-EU aviation agreement talks.
The new structure – which will see easyJet Europe headquartered in Vienna – “means that easyJet will become a pan European airline group”, with three airlines based in the UK, Switzerland and Austria.
All of these will be owned by easyJet plc which itself will be EU owned and controlled, listed on the London Stock Exchange and based in the UK.
EasyJet added that the establishment of the new airline would create a number of new jobs in Austria, but that no jobs would move from the UK to Austria. All of its UK employees will continue to be based in Luton and our 11 UK bases. The first flight on an easyJet Europe aircraft will take place today (Thursday).
The announcement was made as part of easyJet’s financial results report for the third quarter, ended June 30.
Headline profit before tax guidance for the full-year is expected in the range of £380 million to £420 million.
For the quarter specifically, passengers carried increased by 10.8% to 22.3 million, driven by an increase in capacity of 9.5% to 24 million seats and load factor increasing by 1.1 percentage points to 93.1%.
Total revenue in the quarter increased by 16% to £1,387 million, “with a significant benefit from the move of Easter to April”, higher load factors, as well as “an improving underlying trend in the trading environment”.
The airline added that on-going enhancements to its customer proposition and other revenue initiatives helped to stimulate bookings and build revenue momentum throughout the period.
Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s chief executive (who will leave to join ITV at the end of the year), said: "EasyJet has delivered a strong performance in the quarter right across the business.
"Our purposeful and disciplined growth continues to strengthen our market positions and we are seeing an underlying improving revenue trend.
"Our continuing product and digital innovation is generating revenue growth. Our underlying cost control is strong, while our investment in resilience is delivering results in our operational performance.
"Although we expect capacity to continue to put pressure on yields, our progress this year has enabled us to upgrade this year’s PBT (profit before tax) forecast and demonstrates that after a difficult 18 months of external challenges easyJet once again has positive momentum."
