EASYJET has announced it will remove seats on its aircraft as a short-term solution to the staffing crisis gripping the airline industry.

Easyjet will remove six seats in the back two rows on a number of planes, bringing capacity down and therefore requiring only three crew members instead of four.

The airline said the decision was an "effective way" of operating its fleet and that it was compliant with Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) requirements.

"This summer we will be operating our UK A319 fleet with a maximum of 150 passengers onboard and three crew in line with CAA regulations," the company said.

"This is an effective way of operating our fleet while building additional resilience and flexibility into our operation this summer where we expect to be back to near 2019 levels of flying."

Commenting on the decision, aviation professor Francesco Ragni said removing the last row "was a very smart decision" because of the operational benefits it would bring.

"It's much cheaper to reduce passen- ger ratios than cancel flights due to staff shortages which will have less impact on customers," added travel expert Rob Staines.

Easyjet made the headlines when it was forced to cancel hundreds of flights in the run-up to Easter following a spike in Covid-related infections among its staff.

The airline, which said it had already recruited most of the new staff needed for the summer season, argued last month shortages were also caused by a delay in government vetting.

However, a few hours later, Easyjet retracted its comment and said it was working alongside partners to "expedite the process so that we can get more crew on board in the short term".

Airlines UK's chief executive Tim Alderslade said last week that a combination of Covid-19 era redundancies and Brexit had reduced the industry's available labour pool.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said last month that "post-Brexit freedoms" would speed up the process of bringing new recruits into service.

The industry is under pressure heading into what is sure to be a busy summer period thanks to pent up demand.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper