Easyjet is reporting a slowdown in demand during the 2012 Olympics for its flights to airports in and around London.
The airline has reported a slowdown, not only of its corporate traffic during the 2012 Olympics Games period, but also for leisure customers. However, the airline’s bookings are reported to look much healthier after the Games end on August 12, 2012. The decrease in business travel is likely to be due to a perception that London will be too busy a place to comfortably do business while the Games are on.
A report on the company website has stated, ‘The London Olympic games will present operational challenges to our London bases. Consequently, easyJet has taken steps to protect its operational performance during the course of the games e.g. crew and operational control centre (OCC) staffing levels have been strengthened and daily Olympics meetings have been introduced.
easyJet has seen a fall in demand for flights touching London during the Olympic period, both from inbound business travellers and outbound leisure travellers, but forward bookings show a recovery once the games have concluded.’
The company chief executive officer, Carolyn McCall, said in a statement, ‘Forward booking falls in line with last year. The Olympics will have, or has had an effect in July/early August. We will be roughly flat across the network. We will be slightly down in London. We are confident we will recover that in late August and September; September is already looking stronger than it would have normally done as a result of people shifting things round. This is a London effect, nothing else.’
