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Is it true that you requested a pay cut when you joined easyJet? Yes, I did. There was a debate that was quite high on the agenda in the UK and other jurisdictions at that point in time, about gender pay. And I was given a base salary that was higher than my predecessor, Carolyn McCall. I was very keen on making sure that we don’t pay differently for the same job. It was a small, symbolic gesture to say that I’m serious about this. I really mean this. Hence, why I requested that pay cut from the board. I thought it would help us to put the debate on the agenda.
EasyJet Holidays has grown to where it represents a quarter of your pre-tax profit. Did your background with TUI influence your decision to grow the easyJet Holidays business? Funnily enough, it didn’t. The idea of easyJet Holidays, which is a separate standalone business, actually came after I’d been with the company two or three months, when I was sitting down and learning more about the route network. I saw that we had the largest network to leisure and beach destinations of any airline in Europe. And then, when I dug further into this, the team told me that, “Look, we also have a huge number, millions of people, who book hotels with us.” Then my reflection was, “Well, why are we giving that business away?” We already had the network and the brand, so the traffic for a potential holiday business was going to come, more or less, for free. That is one of the biggest expenses for any holiday company: how do you acquire the customers? It seemed to me like we were just leaving lots of money on the table, but it was definitely not an idea that I had before I joined easyJet.
One of your personal passions is sustainability. At what point do you see your fleet cutting over to a completely next-technology aircraft? Airbus has stated that they’re looking to have a hydrogen aircraft available to the market by 2035. And, obviously, we would like to be at the forefront, and be one of the first customers to take that and put that into our fleet and network. But getting one aircraft, and then replacing all the aircraft we would have at that point in time, will take some time. Current technology is still developing and becoming more and more efficient as well. But, coming back to your question about sustainability being close to me, yes, I feel strongly about this. I’ve been passionate about this for quite a long time. This is a topic that has been quite high up on the Nordic countries’ agenda, and I’m from Sweden, so that was something that was already in my mind. In all fairness, the company had been onto this before I joined, but it is true that I wanted to accelerate our roadmap.
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