easyJet sees growing confidence for travel following ease of UK restrictions

Following the news that UK-wide restrictions over the Christmas period would be eased, searches for flights and holidays increased by over 200% week-on-week. The airline also saw a significant rise in demand for December flights, with domestic connections between London and Bristol to Belfast and London to Edinburgh proving amongst the most popular. 

easyJet launched its Black Friday sale yesterday which resulted in a positive response in international bookings, suggesting a growing confidence to make travel plans. Brits have been taking advantage of the deals to book trips next Spring and Summer, with Beach favourites Faro, Palma, Alicante and Malaga as well as Turkey and the Canary Islands among the top destinations.  

Johan Lundgren, CEO of easyJet said: “Following the government announcement this week we have seen a 200% increase in searches for both flights and holidays, with domestic bookings significantly up week on week proving popular for those looking to visit friends and family over December. So we know underlying demand is there, which we see every time travel restrictions are lifted. We continue to closely review our flying programme to ensure we are aligning our schedule with customer demand. We also launched our Black Friday Sale yesterday and the positive response in terms of bookings seems to show a growing confidence to make travel plans.  The safety and wellbeing of our customers remains our highest priority and during the pandemic this is more important than ever so we continue to have a number of safety measures in place onboard in line with guidance from the relevant authorities. This includes daily enhanced cabin disinfection effective in protecting against coronavirus for at least 24 hours and mandatory mask wearing for customers and crew. All of our aircraft are already fitted with HEPA filters, similar to those used in hospitals, which filter 99.97% of airborne contaminants in the cabin, including viruses and bacteria.”