Despite widespread worker shortages and recruitment difficulties for roles including airport security and ground staff, industry demands to allow more EU citizens to fill the gaps “is not something they have responded positively to”, said the Johan Lundgren. “We know that exceptions are made to allow other groups of workers to come in, ballet dancers, circus performers, bakers and so on, but not for aviation staff,” the easyJet chief executive said. “It would help if you could sort out the visa process, it will take the pressure off of course.” However, he said it did not appear ministers were planning to change visa rules for the aviation sector. “That’s not something we’ve seen them tend to do right now.” EasyJet said it was struggling to find enough domestic staff to fill vacancies amid chronic labor shortages across the economy and as unemployment held steady at 3.8% in June. “The level of people that the whole industry is recruiting from has become smaller, partly also because we don’t have the same number of EU nationals available,” Lundgren said. “As far as the government is concerned, we will continue to work with them to make sure the sector remains an attractive place to work and to make sure there are enough people to recruit from.” EasyJet said it was also facing problems on the continent amid a recovery in demand for overseas travel after the lifting of pandemic restrictions, but added: “The issues here are bigger than in Europe.” Lundgren’s comments came as the airline reported a £133m financial hit from the disruption to air travel between April and June, leading to a pre-tax loss of £114m for the second quarter of the year. EasyJet was one of the airlines hardest hit by the recent travel turmoil, canceling around 10,000 flights from its summer schedule in June. Its chief executive left last month after weeks of disruption and further last-minute flight cancellations, which have damaged the airline’s reputation for reliability and customer service. Lundgren said the airline’s daily operations had “normalized” in recent weeks, adding that easyJet had flown more than 3,100 flights on Saturday and Sunday, the start of the summer getaway for many families, and had not had to cancel any United Kingdom flights per day. Subscribe to the Business Today daily email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter @BusinessDesk Long queues for travelers, combined with flight delays and cancellations in recent weeks, have sparked a blame game between airports and airlines. Lundgren said easyJet was discussing seeking compensation from airports such as Gatwick which tried to limit daily flight numbers in an attempt to control travel disruption. “In terms of potential compensation, I mean that’s certainly something we’ll discuss individually with our operators and partners,” Lundgren said, but declined to elaborate.
