easyJet announces restart of flying from 15 June with new bio security measures

easyJet announced that it will resume some flights on 15 June. Services will be operating from London Gatwick, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Belfast, and Isle of Man in the UK. In addition, flying will resume in France from Nice, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon and Lille, as well as from Geneva in Switzerland, Lisbon and Porto in Portugal, and Barcelona in Spain.

Flying will principally be on domestic routes alongside a minimal number of international routes. The airline expects to increase flying as customer demand continues to build and restrictions are relaxed. During the lockdown period the fleet has been grounded the aircraft have been maintained in a flight ready condition to enable the airline to resume flights quickly at the right time. 

 A new range of additional measures will be in place to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of all customers and crew onboard. These include enhanced aircraft disinfection for easyJet aircraft; customers, cabin and ground crew will be required to wear masks; there will also initially be no food service onboard flights, all of which operate on a short-haul network.

The measures have been implemented in consultation with aviation authorities ICAO and EASA, and in line with relevant national authorities and medical advice through the airline’s chief medical adviser.

Johan Lundgren, CEO of easyJet, commented:

“I am really pleased that we will be returning to some flying in the middle of June. These are small and carefully planned steps that we are taking to resume operations. We will continue to closely monitor the situation across Europe so that when more restrictions are lifted the schedule will continue to build over time to match demand while also ensuring we are operating efficiently and on routes that our customers want to fly. The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew remains our highest priority which is why we are implementing a number of measures enhancing safety at each part of the journey from disinfecting the aircraft to requiring customers and crew to wear masks. These measures will remain in place for as long as is needed to ensure customers and crew are able to fly safely as the world continues to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. We look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard in June.”

The airline has also today released a video outlining the new measures that will be in place for customers’ wellbeing for when they next travel. The video can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/420797408/e0c5ccb978.

NEW MEASURES:

AIRCRAFT CLEANING:  

The additional cleaning and disinfection procedures for aircraft cabins are on top of an existing daily aircraft cleaning schedule. Every aircraft will be subject to a daily disinfection process which provides surface protection from viruses that lasts for at least 24 hours.

ON BOARD MEASURES:

All passengers and crew will be required to wear masks onboard at all times.  Initially when flights restart, the Bistro and Boutique service will not be available. Furthermore, all flights will be equipped with spare sanitary equipment including masks, gloves and hand sanitiser to ensure these are available to customers and crew at all times onboard, if required. easyJet’s aircraft are already fitted with state of art filtration technology. High efficiency particle arresting filters filter 99.97% of airborne contaminants in the cabin, including viruses and bacteria. These filters are the same as those used in hospitals and through them the cabin air gets replaced every 3-4 minutes.

AIRPORT MEASURES:

To protect customers and ground crew in the airport, customers will be able to use our automated bag drop to check in their hold luggage and screens will be in place at our check in desks and at airports where auto bag drop is not available. Ground crew and cabin will not handle any customer documents during boarding so customers will be asked to present and scan their own documents.  easyJet already encourages all customers to check in online and download their boarding pass onto their smart phone or to print their own boarding passes before arriving at the airport.  Our ground crew will also wear gloves and masks at all times when transporting customer luggage to and from the aircraft.

 Further recommendations for airports indicate there may also be measures in places at airports such as wearing masks, self-declaration health forms to be completed ahead of departure, and temperature screening. The airline is working with all airports where it operates to understand what measures will be in place to protect customers.

SOCIAL DISTANCING:

Customers will be able to practice social distancing in the airports, at gates and during boarding. Onboard, and where possible, crew will invite customers to sit at distance from customers not in their party where seats are available.

easyJet will continue to work with the relevant national authorities to review and assess what measures are required in the longer term.  

For more information on available flights and to book visit easyJet.com.