Somewhat of a non-story whipped up by know-nothing BBC journalists. Where's Raymond Baxter when you need him ?
Easyjet have not added any A319s to the fleet for some years, only A320s. So the larger aircraft are not involved in this. The A319s are now I believe the minority fleet.
I always thought it bizarre for Easy to specify a 156-seat A319, with the further added cost of the double overwing exit. The chances of selling those last six seats are only a fraction of flights they make, possibly less than 20% of flights, yet the added costs of an extra FA are required on every flight, because the cabin crew requirement is based on seats fitted, not sat in, and every other A319 operator I'm aware of only fits up to 149 seats. In fact I wonder why Easy did not do this long ago.
If you are short of crew then going for a step which reduces crew requirements seems sensible.
If, like most LCCs, the cabin crew are on incentive commission for cabin sales, which is then divided among the crew on board, dividing the commission three ways instead of four will appeal to some.
Last edited by WHBM; 9th May 2022 at 06:55.