easyJet poaches top Ryanair executive

Peter Bellew is credited with turning around the pilot shortage at the Irish airline

Flight plan: easyJet says it is are on course to make at least £400m in profits this year (Simon Calder)

Ryanair has lost one of its key executives to its main rival, easyJet.

Peter Bellew announced a week ago that he was leaving the Irish airline, where he is chief operations officer.

Mr Bellew, 54, is widely credited with turning around Ryanair’s operations after the disastrous winter of 2017-18, when thousand of flights were cancelled due to a shortage of pilots.

He had left his role as chief executive of Malaysia Airlines to return to Ryanair.

Mr Bellew is to join easyJet, Britain’s biggest budget airline, in the corresponding role – as chief operating officer.

His new boss, easyJet’s chief executive Johan Lundgren, said: “Peter has an exceptional level of experience across commercial and operational roles in both low-cost and full-service airlines and is a great leader with a proven track record in delivering results.

“I believe we have secured the very best person for this role and I am delighted to welcome Peter.”

Mr Bellew said: “I look forward to focusing on the customer and on time performance which is a key driver for success. easyJet have always been an innovator among global low-cost carriers and there is a super opportunity to capitalise on its data and digital skillsets to further improve customer experience and operational performance.”

Ryanair and easyJet have been arch-rivals for the past 25 years, and there has been very little movement of top staff between them.

Mr Bellew will bring many years of experience at the Irish airline. He had been expected to remain with Ryanair until the end of the year, but is not expected to play an active role at the Dublin HQ.

Switching sides: Peter Bellew is moving from Ryanair to easyJet (Ryanair)

The news was revealed along with easyJet’s third-quarter results, covering the months from April to June 2019.

The airline’s performance was in line with expectations, and there has been no change in the financial forecast for the full year.

Revenue rose by 11 per cent while cost per seat, excluding fuel, decreased by 4 per cent. The airline has sold 78 per cent of its available seats to the end of September.

Mr Lundgren said: “Our customers experienced significantly reduced cancellations and long delays largely as a result of our investment in operational resilience.

“We remain very focused on delivering our revenue initiatives and driving costs down to enhance our profitability per seat. With second half forward bookings at 78 per cent, we have better visibility on the second half and expect to deliver a profit before tax of between £400m and £440m, in line with market expectations.”

Passenger numbers rose by 8 per cent to 26.4 million, a slower rate than the 10 per cent increase in capacity. The airline’s load factor – the percentage of seats sold – fell from 93.4 to 91.7 per cent, due to “late yield initiatives” – raising fares steeply shortly before departure – and exceptionally high comparatives a year earlier due to the collapse of Monarch.

But easyJet warned of “softening of demand due to tougher macroeconomic conditions across Europe as well as Brexit-related consumer uncertainty in the UK”.