EZY management's answer this Friday to why this fee has been applied:
"From yesterday, we are replaced our booking fee with an admin fee of £9. This fee will be included in all advertising, displayed as part of a full and final flight price at the first stage of the booking process and will be applied to all bookings, regardless of payment method and the number of flights booked.
The admin fee will be charged on all bookings and passengers using a credit card will pay an additional fee to cover handling costs. We will not charge for handling debit card payments It is necessary for us to charge an admin fee to contribute to a wide range of administrative costs which have increased throughout the airline and across Europe.
Inflation has been a significant driver of cost increase as well as our investment in IT (to improve the passenger experience) in our call centre (to cope with the extra burden of EU261 regulations - which make airlines responsible for delays, cancellations and right of care expenses during force majeure events such as volcanic eruptions, snow closures and ATC strikes), plus other central costs.
This has left us with no choice but to pass on some of the additional costs to passengers. These changes have been made in order to address the concerns raised by consumer bodies and regulators across the EU whilst retaining a simple, transparent and consistent booking process for all passengers regardless of nationality.
We will apply the charge per booking, rather than per person, because the overwhelming majority of our customers book multiple flights or flights with multiple passengers.
Other airlines charge for each person flying, so that a family of four would be charged £48 compared to only £9 when they travel with easyJet. We believe this offers the most passengers the best value for money."