Summary
- easyJet pilots have narrowly rejected the latest pay deal.
- The airline confirmed that it continues speaking with the pilot union, denying that there was a strike on the horizon.
- The two sides had already appeared in front of the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) to solve a bargaining-related dispute.
easyJet has confirmed that its pilots rejected a pay offer yet reiterated that the airline and its flight crew, represented by the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) union, remain in constructive dialogue and that no strike action has been planned so far.
Rejected narrowly
According to an easyJet spokesperson, who provided a statement to Simple Flying, the low-cost carrier’s pilots rejected the newest pay deal “narrowly,” with the representative adding that the airline remains in constructive dialogue with BALPA. In addition, no strike action is planned for the time being. Simple Flying has also reached out to BALPA for a comment.
In its latest financial update on April 18, covering the six-month period ending on March 31, easyJet explained that its H1 FY2024 cost per seat (CPS), excluding fuel-related costs, was flat year-on-year (YoY), which was in line with its guidance.
Photo: easyJet
Looking forward, the airline said that it expected its H2 FY2024 CPS, excluding fuel costs, to increase by low single digits YoY. In H1 FY2024, its CPS, excluding fuel, was £57.28 ($71.86), rising to a total of £78.88 ($98.96) when all of its costs are included in the equation.
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Disputing in front of the Central Arbitration Committee
According to a filing by the United Kingdom’s Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) on March 25, BALPA and easyJet had a conflict that was related to the latter’s alleged failure to disclose financial information to begin collective bargaining negotiations.
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
The CAC detailed that BALPA requested easyJet’s UK operation’s contribution to the group’s quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and profit before taxes (PBT) broken down by base for FY21-22 and FY22-23.
“When asked to give details of the collective bargaining purpose for which the Union requested the information, the Union stated that it had requested the information in order to fully participate in collective bargaining of the 2024 pay settlement for UK based airline pilots.”
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Dispute starting in September 2023
However, the CAC disclosed that the dispute began in September 2023, when BALPA had requested easyJet to provide the aforementioned financial information, as well as crew food costs and paid leave allocation per month versus full-time employment for that month. The union told the committee that in order to properly assess easyJet’s financial status, which would influence BALPA’s pay claim, it needed to know the proportion of easyJet’s profits from its UK operations.
BALPA claimed that easyJet already has profit and loss data from each base, meaning that this information could be shared with the union without extra costs. Furthermore, disclosing the data would be good industrial relations practice since easyJet would be open and honest with its workforce.
Photo: Hervé Goussé | Airbus
In response, easyJet told the CAC that the financial data was not required for collective bargaining. Still, to “maintain a positive relationship with the Union,” the low-cost carrier had offered to provide financial data based on routes that were flown from/to the UK, which would be more accurate.
easyJet also claimed that neither the paid leave nor crew food costs data was requested so that BALPA could negotiate a new pay deal. Instead, BALPA had other goals with the information, which included showing that crew food costs were not being used for other purposes.
Nevertheless, the CAC ruled that the airline has to close the EBIT and PBT information requested by BALPA within four weeks of the decision. However, the paid leave allocation and crew food costs were deemed unnecessary to the collective bargaining process in which the two parties are currently involved.
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