business Essential news, comment and analysis Johan Lundgren:


‘We have not had a single conversation about who we are going to take customers from’


EasyJet Holidays to target airline’s customer base


EasyJet chief Johan Lundgren talked tour operation and technology at the Travel weekly Business Breakfast. Lee Hayhurst reports


The new easyJet Holidays is not setting out to be a niche player as it aims to take a larger chunk of the 20 million customers who flew with the carrier but bought accommodation elsewhere.


Johan Lundgren, chief executive of the low-cost carrier, told the latest Travel Weekly Business Breakfast, hosted by Facebook, that easyJet would “take more control of part of the value chain”. This would see elements of


easyJet Holidays, currently fulfilled 64travelweekly.co.uk20 December 2018


by Hotelbeds division Hotelopia, brought back in-house and hotels directly contracted, although bed banks would still be used. Lundgren hired former Tui colleague Garry Wilson to head up the business as chief executive in May this year. Wilson began his role last month. Lundgren told the breakfast that the holidays division would be run separately from the airline as he didn’t want to introduce complexity into the airline business.


“This is not something new, it’s just that we have not invested in it,” Lundgren said. “This is also something other scheduled airlines are doing. “One of the consistent problems


when they are doing it is they are always thinking in terms of the context of an airline. Instead of focusing on where people are going to spend the seven days of their holiday, they focus on the seven hours on the plane.” Wilson told delegates: “Certainly


it helps, if you own a holidays business, to have people in that business who understand holidays. This is a gap that some


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