EasyJet has secured a £600m loan from the Treasury and Bank of England’s emergency coronavirus fund.
The budget airline will borrow another £407m from commercial creditors in an effort to strengthen its liquidity during the ongoing crisis. The announcement comes hours after easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou warned that the carrier risked running out of cash by August if it did not cancel a £4.5bn order from Airbus. EasyJet has grounded its entire fleet of aircraft for at least two months.
The announcement came as Haji-Ioannou, who with his family owns just over a third of easyJet shares, demanded an emergency general meeting and called for the sacking of two directors.
After news of the new financing, a spokesman for Haji-Iannaou said that it did not change the underlying situation, without cancellation of the Airbus order: “Given the current cash burn – that probably pushes the insolvency boundary back from August to late-autumn, early winter.”
