Happy trippers to Benidorm are only part of the picture. Its business travel that pays the bills. If they spend months using modern media to deal with each other worldwide, sucessfully, when `normality` returns they are much less likely to send exec`s by air. The second drawback does affect the happy trippers to Benidorm and that is the Travel Insurance Industry..Already they have said they will not cover again for pandemics and virus emergencies like this, after the 14th March actually. That alone will dampen demand. They give the appearance of being latter day Highwaymen so if you fall ill abroad, they`ll do their best, again, to wriggle out of paying.

Time of course will tell

Yes and No.
Holiday wise - the wide consensus in our family is that as soon as we can we are going to get something booked and go 'somewhere - anywhere' (er not Benidorm though thanks).
Business wise - I had my first trip cancelled 3 weeks ago (the day before travel) and since then I have been working remotely. The limitations of doing this are already apparent to me and to my clients. With a more or less global reach on my activities, the practical issue of different time zones is a major challenge. There is a considerable amount of pent-up demand to get things done face to face whenever it's possible.
Of more relevance though is whether there is an economy left to do business with. We are literally watching our children's futures go up in smoke.

The insurers (or mine at least) will cover medical expenses but not cancellation or delay due to corona from the date it was declared a pandemic. That's why tui etc have issued a promise around fee free flexibility on bookings.

JSCL: "But why cause hardship for even more people?"

Because it would release large amounts of cash funds that the company may well need over the next few weeks and months. Under exceptional circumstances and particularly if the stability and health of the company is under question, the board's decision could be rescinded. These are indeed exceptional conditions and will directly affect many easyJet employees now and in the future. There is also a very strong moral case for hanging onto the cash right now.

To suggest that pensioners will be adversely affected is (in the short term particularly) absurd. If half of your staff get laid off I think you will find it is they who will be adversely affected.

I will ignore your reference to my ignorance as you have no idea about my background and experience in these fields.

There is a very strong case for stopping (or seriously reducing) payouts to shareholders and hanging on to those fund to help it through the next few months of uncertainty.

Good luck to you all.

Agree with Barry here,
Pension funds may well be the shareholders receiving these dividends, but what would happen to these pension funds' investments if EasyJet went down the plughole due to shortage of cash? Better to defer a dividend payment to better times than risk the entire investment, in which case there would be no dividend ever again; not to mention the capital write down.

Emergency times or no emergency times, firms of all types tend to disappear when they run out of liquidity - ie cash. All airlines everywhere will be in a mad dash to conserve cash in order to survive - actually giving it away might reasonably be viewed as insanity.
In the case of airlines, as we have recently seen, poor management decisions have led to dire consequences. What is it about airline management?

Shareholders of the company voted to pay themselves, on board advice, a dividend. Board is answerable to shareholders, taking a decision to refuse to pay a dividend after it has been legally approved by owners is basically a board acting beyond its powers.

It doesn't matter how morally or seemingly incorrect it is, the board is answerable to the shareholders NOT to general public who have zero invested in the company.

Buy shares in Easyjet then and turn up at their AGM and make your case. One single share entitles you to attend their AGM and state your case. Cost of 1 share plus dealing costs will set you back less than £50. You are then free to show all your experience in the field.

Now that aircraft are largely grounded for the time being, where are they being stored ? At all the usual overnight bases, or are they being concentrated in larger numbers but at fewer locations, and if so, where ?

I believe then plan was to keep them near to their own engineers, I cannot say more.

The aircraft will need to be kept alive and no doubt some crew training will be required when this drags out to 90 days.

Very unusual to go on FR24 to see not a single EasyJet aircraft in the air at this time of the morning and 8pm last night.

Are there any routes that they are actually still operating now?

My booked flight with easyJet for 6th April, is still showing as operating and remains bookable. (MAN-BIO)
Why have they not cancelled and offered a refund option etc?
Most other airlines have cancelled all April ops and dealt/dealing with the outfall, but nothing from easy.

Nobody is offering refunds.

I'd booked for some family friends to go to Canada in April to watch some rugby with EI and it's been canned, but no refund. Just a voucher.

I don’t think the airlines have the cash to issue a refund.

Easyjet showing normal 3 weekly LTN - TFS - LTN schedule on sale from 31 March and all April....Hmmmmm

Flights will be formally notified to pax as cancelled just a few days before departure - at which point pax can claim a refund. If it's not formally cancelled, then airline can use T&Cs to state that only a voucher can be issued. It's all about trying to find ways to prevent negative cashflow and minimising the number of refunds so as to keep the airline alive long term, without breaking the law

There was something similiar going on with the Iceland volcano in 2010

Can they legally "use T&Cs to state that only a voucher can be issued" though?

EC261 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0261:EN:HTML) states "1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall: (a) be offered assistance by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 8". Article 8 states "1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall be offered the choice between: (a) - reimbursement within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought.." Article 7(3) states "3. The compensation referred to in paragraph 1 shall be paid in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank orders or bank cheques or, with the signed agreement of the passenger, in travel vouchers and/or other services." (my emphasis)

So my reading of that is that travel vouchers can only be offered with the signed agreement of the passenger. A way to get such agreement would be the terms and conditions agreed to at the time of booking. However, EasyJet's (for example), say in 5.5 (https://www.easyjet.com/en/terms-and-conditions) "We will only pay refunds to the Booker using the original payment method" and their key terms (https://www.easyjet.com/en/terms-and...ions/key-terms) say "If we cancel your flight you can transfer to another available easyJet flight to the same (or a nearby) destination for free, or if you prefer you can get a full refund". The only mention of a voucher is in 5.3 of the terms which is in the context of cancellation due to serious illness or bereavement.

So in the example of EasyJet, what's the mechanism for them gaining passengers' consent to being reimbursed by vouchers?

You don't have to accept a voucher, and ruthless as it sounds I would be on the look out for cash.

I do not think that Easyjet will disappear. But I do think that they have achieved the unthinkable and managed to annoy more people than Ryanair. O'Leary may not be to everyone's taste but at least his communication on the website was dignified. Easyjet have not thought it necessary to communicate to their passengers other than through flight cancellation messages only offering the option of rebooking onto a load of flights which in all probability will not be operating, with the proviso you can only change once for free!

The future of the company depends on the goodwill of various stakeholders, the government who are obviously irritated by the dividend to shareholders, the staff where the crew meal issue seems a case of very poor timing and the frequent customers like myself who are wondering about the lack of communication. It is not true by the way that no airlines are refunding tickets. I will make a point of using those that do in future.

Airlines are stating publicly that they "understand" how people might want to change their plans - so it's absolutely fine for people to change the date of their flights without paying a change fee - just pay the fare difference (but no refund if the fare is lower). People will tend to panic about not wanting to fly in April - so change their flight to a date in (e.g.) October. Airline now has the right to hold onto your money until October even if the flight in April is cancelled (which it almost certainly will be) and has no obligation to offer any kind of refund
48 hours before your flight in April was due to depart, airline will email all remaining pax to say they can have either a cash refund or a credit note or to change to an alternate date - but the people who have changed their flight to October don't receive this email

All completely legit - the airline hangs onto the money of many pax as a cash reserve / working capital and hopefully stays in business until times are a bit better in October. If the airline goes bankrupt before October, the money has been used to pay things like salaries / airline leases and passenger likely gets nothing from the insolvency process

If as a pax you have a flight booked in the spring, you are best off waiting until 1 or 2 days before the flight is due to depart, and only then should you tell the airline what you want to do

I don’t disagree with the above, David, but EasyJet are making it nigh impossible to claim your money back - no link on the website that can register your refund and directed to a Customer Service line that cuts you off after a recorded message.

My most likely route for a refund will be via my credit card provider. Absolutely useless. Even Ryanair have an online link to a refund.