easyjet: turning Tegel losses around

Whatever the HY1 2019 results of easyjet will be when they are disclosed on May 17, don’t expect black numbers here from the airline’s operations at Berlin Tegel. As CEO Johan Lundgren recently told Airinsight: “We made a huge improvement from the result that we had last year and that is what we are seeing too this year. But it is true to say that we don’t anticipate that we going to break-even or make money on that.”

Easyjet is not there yet but it has been making huge steps at improving its results at the Berlin airport. The airline always had a presence at Germany’s capital, when it operated to Schönefeld at the South East of the city. All changed late 2017 when airberlin

filed for bankruptcy. It offered a unique opportunity for easyjet to become the leading airline at that other Berlin airport – Tegel, situated at the North West.

In October 2017, easyjet announced it would purchase 25 Airbus A320s from airberlin, as well as initially some 300 cockpit and cabin crew for £40mln. After European Commission-approval, it completed the acquisition mid-December and began operations with a winter schedule on January 5, 2018, by offering domestic services to six cities within Germany plus to 71 destinations within Europe. By Summer 2018, the number of routes out of Tegel had increased to over 100.