Willie Walsh has brushed off any threat of Easyjet luring business travellers away from British Airways.
BA’s CEO suggested the no-frills carrier should focus more on its timekeeping than on rivalling full-service carriers by launching new products for corporates.
Easyjet last week announced plans to start offering a new flexible fare, aimed at the business traveller.
In an interview with The Observor, Walsh called Easyjet’s operational performance “appalling”, citing punctuality figures of 48% at Gatwick airport during June, worse than Air Zimbabwe.
Walsh said Easyjet’s new CEO, Carolyn McCall, has “a huge challenge that will be very difficult to overcome”.
As ABTN reported in July, the average delay of Easyjet’s flights departing and arriving at UK airports in May was 26 minutes, a dramatic increase on the 9-minute average in May last year.
At the time, the airline said it was aware of the problem and pledged to improve its schedules and sub-charter crew and aircraft.
Due to go on sale from the end of this month, Easyjet’s new fare will offer “unlimited flexibility” for passengers to change their flights, up to two hours before scheduled departure times.
Nigel Turner, director of programme management at travel management company Carlson Wagonlit, has said he thinks travellers will be tempted to take up the offer:
“I think there are a lot of people who already travel on Easyjet for business, who have perhaps got used to the basis of having restricted tickets.
“But, I think this will attract some new customers who were perhaps reticent to go on such fares before, who will probably be more attracted.”