“EasyJet has grounded its entire fleet of aircraft for at least two months and will seek to scale back plans for £4.5bn of spending, including payments for new planes from Airbus, in response to the collapse in demand for air travel because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The budget airline said it could not put a firm date on restarting commercial flights and 4,000 of its 9,000 UK staff will be furloughed, initially for two months, from 1 April.

“EasyJet also said it would seek to pay less for new aircraft after its founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, threatened to call repeated shareholder meetings to remove directors until the airline reconsidered buying 107 new aircraft from Airbus.

“The new Airbus planes are a major part of easyJet’s planned £4.5bn in capital expenditure up to 2023.”

Read more at The Guardian