Johan Lundgren: ‘I get upset when people say we should just stop flying’ | easyJet

The clouds are lifting for journey and aviation because it appears ahead to the primary half-term for 2 years freed from most Covid shackles. Bookings have boomed for the reason that choice that journey testing would finish – and easyJet, the airline that carries essentially the most UK passengers, has simply welcomed workers who had been working remotely again to the Luton hangar that serves as head workplace.

If optimism is rising that enterprise may return to pre-pandemic ranges by summer season, easyJet’s chief government, Johan Lundgren, is evident that the disaster shouldn’t be but achieved.

Quick-haul and leisure journey, easyJet’s market, will come again quickest, he says – however that is solely the restoration part of the pandemic after a very long time in survival mode. “You need to remind your self that we had been grounded for 11 weeks and didn’t know once we would restart operations.”

Requested whether or not we’ll see extra variants, he says: “I’m certain we’ll. I don’t suppose we are able to name it over.”

However he actually believes that testing ought to be a factor of the previous. Having needed to monitor diverging Covid coverage throughout Europe over two years, he says: “It’s been extraordinary typically.”

Between the EU’s introduction of digital Covid passports final Could and the onset of the Omicron variant, for instance, he says, most European international locations had been open to vaccinated travellers: “No testing, no quarantine. The UK was the one nation that had these restrictions – and the scientists and consultants are [all] trying on the similar information. And the UK had among the highest charges of infections and circumstances.

“So one must be clear that testing on journey is a very inefficient measure to fight the virus. That experiment has now been achieved. It doesn’t work.”

CV

Age 55

Household Married with twins, a boy and woman, now at college: “They got here collectively, and so they left collectively.”

Training Left college in Sweden at 16 to review classical trombone; enterprise growth programs in Stockholm and Lausanne; and a collection of mentors – “getting folks I can be taught rather a lot from to share ideas and experiences”.

Pay £740,000 together with bonuses; no bonus taken since 2019.

Final vacation Snowboarding in France’s Les Trois Vallées over Christmas.

Finest recommendation he’s been given “Encompass your self with high quality folks.”

Greatest profession mistake “As president of an organization in Canada, I made an enormous change to its distribution technique, implementing it in a single day regardless of folks telling me to not. That failed spectacularly. You be taught to take heed to folks.”

Phrase he overuses “My spouse would say, ‘Have you ever achieved…?’”

How he relaxes “With my spouse, studying books” (presently essays by Christopher Hitchens).

As a Swede, he says he finds the UK’s confrontational politics “fascinating”, and a consider what he sees as misguided coverage: “I feel the federal government thought that individuals favored the thought of controlling sturdy borders. However there was no proof that it was efficient. I don’t know why the federal government has been so eager in going towards what nearly all different international locations had been doing in Europe – I feel most of Europe bought it proper.”

Lundgren first got here to stay within the UK aged 16, following a really totally different flight path. From the age of 11, the younger Johan had just one aim in thoughts: to develop into a trombone soloist. “My mom was a kind of individuals who would have stated ‘completely’ if I’d advised her I wished to be an astronaut,” Lundgren says, “so it in all probability sounded affordable.”

After leaving college in Stockholm to coach for 3 years with the main lights of symphony orchestras in London after which the US, he realised he wasn’t going to hit the extent he wished – a “traumatic” realisation, he confesses. “I used to be so decided to achieve success. I wished to do it so badly.” He offered his trombones and didn’t contact the instrument once more for a few years.

As a substitute, he took inventory, determined he favored folks and holidays, and headed off to hitch the journey enterprise: beginning as a information for coach excursions to the previous Soviet Union, drawing on his information of Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff.

After the Russian chill, he leapt at a posting to Cyprus. This was the beginning of a profession in sunshine holidays for European corporations: he turned second-in-command at Tui earlier than touchdown at easyJet on the finish of 2017.

Lundgren set about boosting easyJet’s vacation arm and planning to make it a extra data-focused airline. Two years later, the pandemic hit – and for some time Lundgren’s solely focus was on learn how to cease haemorrhaging money and hold going. The fleet was grounded at first, after which schedules had been upended by altering guidelines and unsure demand. Many workers had been let go, though agreements with unions minimised obligatory redundancies, he says.

The airline has been rehiring those that took voluntary severance, prioritising former pilots and crew as jobs return, if solely seasonally. Many workers had been additionally furloughed, whereas those that remained “labored tougher than they’ve ever labored of their whole life,” he says.

Whereas aviation was battered by Covid, the trade has much more intractable points to face. After the pandemic, the most important change would be the deal with decarbonisation, Lundgren says. “Folks pays far more consideration to services and products, and corporations they purchase from. They’ll select people who cut back their influence on the atmosphere. That’s a aware selection.”

For that cause, easyJet turned the primary airline to say it will offset emissions from all its flights – about 8m tonnes – at a worth Lundgren refuses to expose, however insists, within the face of some scepticism, that it’s the highest normal. “We’ve got had many individuals making an attempt to work out if the mission has flaws in it – and that’s not the case.”

He admits offsetting shouldn’t be an answer, however argues that electrical and hydrogen planes for short-haul airways are coming earlier than we expect: “The change is exponential, not linear. Airbus have stated they may have a large-scale hydrogen airplane out by 2035. On the electrical aspect, our associate [US startup Wright Electric] stated it should have a 100-plus seater electrical airplane out by 2030.

“It’s not a query this may occur; it’s when, and the way do you then transition? We’ve got a fleet at the moment of 322 plane – we’d like a plan and a roadmap.”

That wants authorities assist throughout Europe to assist the transition, and incentivise greener practices, he argues: “It ought to be simpler and cheaper so that you can transfer into new know-how. We’re getting no tax credit at the moment, for instance, for our high-quality offsetting programme, whereas we all know there’s not going to be a rustic by 2050 which received’t depend on offsetting when it comes to reaching web zero themselves.”

Wouldn’t it’s higher for folks to take trains slightly than planes? “The high-speed rail community in Europe isn’t as developed as some folks would possibly suppose it’s. Huge funding in rail infrastructure would imply you’ll take the carbon hit now – these items have enormous carbon emissions – and by the point they’d be prepared you’d see new know-how in aviation. The main target ought to be on the way you decarbonise the trade; the query shouldn’t be in the event you ought to cease flying.”

Properly, why not? Lundgren’s imposing body stiffens barely, his voice rises and the blue eyes stare a bit tougher as he says: “Due to the hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people that profit – economies that profit, that have an effect in actual folks’s life.”

Local weather change will certainly have a much bigger influence, although? “You shouldn’t cut back these advantages: it is best to cut back the influence on the atmosphere. I get terribly upset when persons are intellectually lazy, and say we should always simply cease flying. You retain the advantages and cut back the impacts – similar to many different industries.”

Greater than 200 well-funded tasks are taking a look at electrical flight, and easyJet has been concerned since 2015, he says: “That is an trade in itself, and one which’s going to be very worthwhile – we have to elevate our voice to speed up it as quickly as potential.

“I really feel very strongly – we’ve achieved our job at easyJet on this entire factor. We see the problem, but in addition a approach out of it.”