easyJet Flight Delays a Staffing Concern
Carolyn McCall, the new chief executive of budget airline easyJet, has admitted that there are problems with crewing and staff morale, which has hit the carrier’s punctuality. She says that, although they have had a resilient commercial performance, she has made dealing with personnel issues a top priority. Apparently she believes that the air traffic control strikes in Europe aren’t the only thing to blame on late and canceled flights from key hubs in Berlin and Gatwick.
She continued that they have a crew shortage at Gatwick and some problems with stand-by crews. It’s her understanding that, when things go wrong in other places, they don’t have enough flexibility in their crewing and scheduling to deal with it. McCall only joined easyJet recently, during the dispute with the airline’s founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Last week Sir Stelios drew legal letters threatening to revoke the easyJet brand from the airline in 90 days if they don’t improve their punctuality. He currently leases the ‘easy’ name to the carrier through his easyGroup business. Statistics show that only 48% of easyJet’s flights from Gatwick last month were on time. Sir Stelios says that the carrier is being run in a way that is inconsistent with and detrimental to the good name, reputation, image and goodwill of easyGroup IP Licensing and its intellectual property rights.
In another letter, Stelios said that the company’s operational mess is due to too few staff available to meet the amount of flights they have, leading to delays and cancellations. McCall has admitted that their on-time performance has to get better, and according to her other statements, she agrees with Stelios about staff numbers.
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3 Responses to “easyJet Flight Delays a Staffing Concern”
I just suffered a three hour delay from Gatwick to Madrid with easyJet on tp of a 2 hour delay on the outbound the day before. I’m with Stelios, they are ruining the brand and trying customer patience with incomptence . . .
Had booked with Easyjet flights departing 31/7/10 from Bristol to Ibiza. After a nearly 3 hour delay at the airport, Easyjet cancelled the flight due to ’staff out of hours’. We were told that there wasn’t a standby crew anywhere in the country!! We were unable to book another flight with any airline at an airport of reasonable distance until 4/8/10 and as we were returning 7/8/10, we had to cancel the holiday! Since told by airport staff that they were one crew member short which is why flight couldn’t depart! Disgraceful!
As well as losing our annual family holiday with two small children, we are now nearly £600 out of pocket as Easyjet will only give us refund for flight and will not compensate us in any way. To make matters worse the customer services staff are now insisting that the flight cancellation was due to Air Traffic Control!!! What an insult!
Thought they were brilliant when we flew with them last year but Never ever again would we book a flight with them.
My daughter has just been released by EASY jet after only a couple of months
She passed the entrance exam and the initial training, the rest is all on line with a “test” before each flight, a pass mark of 90% is required - she achieved 86%
Because she complained about the training and then passed the exam she was given her marching orders. Is this the way to treat Staff. She has look forward to this job all her life and to be treated like this is terrible. The other girls are saying all the crew requirements are communicated online - no personel contact - I question why they have such a large staff turn over - The training of Staff at Easy is obviously a problem and will reflect the general public needs and safety