EasyJet shakes up board after difficult summer

EasyJet has announced a shake-up of its board, with three directors leaving as the airline’s management aims to move on from this summer’s disruption. Former Google executive Nick Leeder, who joined the board in 2019, is to step down at the end of September, while Julie Southern and Andreas Bierwirth will not seek re-election at the company’s annual meeting in 2023. The departing trio will be replaced by Harald Eisenächer, Detlef Trefzger and Ryanne Van der Eijk. EasyJet’s chair Stephen Hester said the new appointees will bring “extensive airline and travel industry experience, with extra focus on operations and logistics, customer experience, digital and data”. “This, combined with their European outlook will further strengthen the board,” he said. Eisenächer is a former Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom executive who recently worked for a Danish airfare technology company, while Trefzger has just stepped down as chief executive officer of Swiss logistics giant Kuehne + Nagel. Van der Eijk has served 20 years at KLM. Hester is a veteran of the City of London with a reputation as a turnround specialist, who was appointed easyJet’s chair 12 months ago. The board changes follow a difficult summer for easyJet, which was caught up in the barrage of flight cancellations, delays and disruption in May and June that marred the return of mass travel following two years of border restrictions. The airline, which pinned much of the blame on staff sickness and issues across the aviation supply chain such as air traffic control delays, was forced to slightly pare back its summer schedule in early July to inject greater resilience into its operations.<br/>