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EasyJet confirms departure of commercial chief in trading update

EasyJet today confirmed the departure of chief commercial officer Peter Duffy as part of a wider management shake-up.

The changes came as the UK budget carrier issued its first trading update under new chief executive and former Tui executive Johan Lundgren, who replaced Carolyn McCall in November as she moved to head ITV.

The airline reported a 14.4% rise in revenue in the three months to December 31 to £1.24 billion as it gained from the collapse of rivals such as Monarch and Air Berlin and Ryanair’s mass cancellations.

The number of easyJet passengers rose by 8% to 18.8 million, driven by a 5.5% capacity hike to 20.4 million seats. The load factor was up by by 2.1 percentage points to 92.1%.

The airline said: “EasyJet has seen a positive trading environment based on the strength of its network and customer proposition, capacity reductions and lower growth in easyJet markets, in particular as a result of the bankruptcies of Monarch, Air Berlin and Alitalia as well as the impact from Ryanair’s flight cancellations.

“EasyJet is well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that are available in the current market.

“With its strong balance sheet and significant financial and operational flexibility, easyJet is confident in its ability to drive long-term shareholder returns from its strategy of purposeful investment in securing leading positions in its core markets.”

Duffy, who was promoted to chief commercial officer in October 2016, is leaving as Lundgren announced changes to the airline’s management structure.

A new role of chief data officer is being created to lead and co-ordinate all of the airline’s management of data.

The new role will report to Lundgren “and will give greater focus and weight to the airline’s use of this data to improve the customer proposition, drive revenue, reduce cost and improve operational reliability,” the airline said.

The recruitment process for this role will start immediately.

Accountability for pricing, revenue management and ancillary revenue will move from the commercial department to strategy and network director Robert Carey.

“All responsibility for revenue generation as well as marketing, digital, data, brand and customer had previously sat with Peter Duffy, the airline’s chief commercial officer, who has agreed with Johan that now is the right time for him to leave easyJet,” the airline said.

The teams that reported to Duffy will be managed by Lundgren in the short term “as he works with them to develop the best structure for these areas of the business”.

Separately, the airline’s communications director Paul Moore has quit to join McCall at ITV.

Lundgren said: “I would like to thank Peter and Paul for everything that theyhave done and achieved at easyJet in the last seven years.

“Both were key members of the management team that transformed easyJet’s performance and both led the repositioning of easyJet’s customer proposition and the reinvigoration of easyJet’s brand.”

Lundgren added: “EasyJet delivered a strong start to the financial year with a significant growth in revenue in part driven by an increase in passengers flown and strong growth in in-flight and ancillary sales as we offer more and better quality options for our passengers.

“We continue to focus on cost, generating approximately £28 million in lean savings in the quarter, and we completed our acquisition of part of Air Berlin’s operations at Berlin Tegel.”

He continued: “My aim is to help easyJet to go from strength to strength. Our customer proposition will continue to drive both passenger growth and loyalty. We have great revenue growth, strong cost control, a robust operation and a strong balance sheet.

“We expect to reach a series of milestones in 2018 including the roll out of our full summer schedule at our newly established base at Berlin Tegel, an increase in passenger numbers from 80 million to around 90 million, ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ will be expanded to around half of easyJet’s network allowing customers to connect to long-haul services, our fleet will increase to over 300 aircraft by spring 2018 and we will take delivery of our first A321neo aircraft.  There’s a lot to look forward to.”

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