From 2nd July 2013 easyJet will guarantee that any passengers who take on board a bag no bigger than 50 x 40 x 20cm will be able to keep their luggage with them in the cabin. The current maximum size permitted – 56 x 45 x 25cm – will remain unchanged, but passengers carrying bags bigger than 50 x 40 x 20cm on busy flights will run the risk of being asked to put their bag in the hold. 
The airline said: “Even if a relatively small proportion of passengers decides to bring the smaller sized bag, it will go a long way to help reduce the number of incidences where a passenger’s bag has to go into the hold. For business travellers who have booked up-front seats and have speedy boarding, if they continue to board the aircraft first then their bag wouldn’t be at risk anyway.”
Free Fast Track Security
EasyJet is also planning to provide free fast track security to attract more business travellers. The new service will be provided as an added benefit when buying easyJet’s flexi fares, which are available from £79 one way.
Fast Track security will be included as one of the range of benefits provided with easyJet’s flexi fares, which give passengers unlimited flexibility to change the date of their flights up to two hours before the scheduled departure time. Passengers booking an easyJet flexi fare will also benefit from the choice of seats at the front of the plane, speedy boarding, no booking fees and a hold bag included at no extra cost.
From May 2013 fast track security will be provided to flexi fare passengers at 27 airports (but not including Belfast) that amount to 54% of the airline’s business network and over the coming months will be progressively rolled out to more airports across easyJet’s network.
Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive, said: “Above all else business travellers want frequent, punctual flights to leading airports, with friendly service and at great fares – and that is why 10 million of them choose to fly with easyJet every year. Building on that platform we want to give them other services that they truly value and which we can deliver without changing our simple efficient operations.
“Allocated seating is a good example of something our business passengers told us they really wanted and that we have been able to manage while maintaining our industry leading punctuality. By teaming up with our airport partners we can now offer fast track security that enables time sensitive business travellers to reduce their journey time through the airport.
“EasyJet doesn’t offer a business class but we do make business sense.”
Half-year Results
Meanwhile, asyJet has reported 2013 half-year results of a loss before tax of £61 million (compared with -£112m in 2012) and total revenue of £1,601 million (£1,465m).
Carolyn McCall said: “EasyJet delivered a strong first half performance, demonstrating the company’s structural advantage in the European short-haul market against both legacy and low-cost competition, and a continuing resilience against a challenging European macro-economic environment.
“Our performance reflects measurable progress against easyJet’s four key strategic objectives that have been amply demonstrated by a significant reduction in the loss for the first half and significant improvement in ROCE over the same period.
“While there is always the potential for unexpected events to impact on short term financial performance, the outlook for the second half of the financial year combined with the strong reduction in first half losses means that easyJet expects to deliver improved returns and profitability for the year ending 30th September 2013.”
