EasyJet intends to have largely retired its fleet of elderly Airbus A319s by 2030 as the budget carrier’s refleeting programme accelerates.
At present, the airline retains 82 A319s – 18 owned and 64 on lease – around 23% of its total 356-strong fleet.
But, says EasyJet chief executive Kenton Jarvis, the smaller aircraft will be progressively retired over the coming years with new A320neo and A321neo jets taken from its outstanding 290-unit firm orderbook; its 100th Neo-family jet will arrive next year, he points out.
Speaking to FlightGlobal during a media event on 10 November to mark the carrier’s 30th anniversary, Jarvis said the A319 fleet would be “really all gone by 2030”.
A small number would likely be retained, he says, “not to be flown, just for spares”, in particular for their CFM International CFM56 engines, which can also be used on the carrier’s older A320s.
Retirement of the A319s will contribute to a planned upguaging of capacity, rising from 181 seats in the 2025 financial year that ended on 30 September to 191 by FY28 and the low 200s by FY34.
Additionally, replacement of the older A320-family jets with Neo aircraft offers a “huge benefit from a sustainability point of view”, given the 15% fuel-burn saving from the latter’s CFM Leap-1A engines.
EasyJet received nine aircraft in FY25 – a mixture of A320/A321neos – but the pace of deliveries will accelerate in the coming years, says Jarvis: Airbus has confirmed 17 new jets will arrive in FY26, 30 in FY27 with “the potential” to go to 43 the next year.
“And that gives us a strong ability to grow as we wish to but also to start cracking on with retiring workhorses,” he adds. No aircraft exited the fleet during the first half of EasyJet’s financial year, its financial statements disclose. However, two A319s (G-EZDF/EZDI) were ferried to St Athan airport for teardown on 10 and 11 November, respectively.
EasyJet’s current orderbook extends until FY34 and is sufficient for fleet replacement and “fairly modest growth” of around 5%. It also holds 100 purchase rights.
While the A319’s days are numbered, EasyJet will not be as quick to replace its A320 fleet as they have “the right number of seats” and a “really reliable engine”.
Although acknowledging the Leap-1A is “slightly less durable” and “needs to be touched more frequently” than the CFM56, Jarvis says the carrier has not experienced the premature degredation issues encountered by other operators, particurly when flying in hot and dusty environments.
EasyJet only has a small number of routes where the Leap-1A fleet would be exposed to more challenging conditions for engine longevity and “it’s not hard to plan in the hot and high exposure”, he adds.
Part of the problem with the transition to new engines models, he suggests, is that the industry “has been spoiled by the CFM56” as it “performed beyond expectations – everyone expected seven to eight years on wing and we got more like nine or 10”.
He maintains that EasyJet is not permanently wedded to CFM as its engine supplier; prior to its last big aircraft order in December 2023, it examined the alternative Pratt & Whitney PW1100G for its incoming Neo fleet.
“We sat down with both [engine makers] and got pricing from both – but CFM didn’t want to lose us and came up with a really good deal.”
Similarly, the airline talked to Boeing prior to the last order, who, he says, “were keen to do business”, not least that had it secured EasyJet as a customer alongside Ryanair it would have locked up Europe’s big two low-cost carriers. But, says Jarvis, “Airbus didn’t want to lose us”.
Had EasyJet selected the 737 Max, those Boeing jets would likely have been allocated to the UK operation, concentrating them under one air operator’s certificate alongside all the supporting infrastructure required. A two-type fleet works “as long as you are big enough”, Jarvis notes.
He also sees no need at present for the longer-range A321XLR variant. It has “no interest” in transatlantic routes or an expansion into the Middle East – a region recently vacated by low-cost rival Wizz Air – or other more distant destinations.
“It’s a different game and not something we need in our immediate future,” he says.
Instead, the airline will restrict its mid-haul growth to destinations like the Cape Verde islands and Marrakech in Morocco, where next year it will establish a base – its first in Africa.
Further out, EasyJet continues to work with Airbus and Rolls-Royce to examine the potential for hydrogen propulsion, and with US aircraft developer JetZero on a blended-wing-body aircraft.
Although the move to the A320neo family is ongoing “by the time we have finished that [around 2035] we can look at the next aircraft,” Jarvis says. “In another 30 years, if we are sat here, I’m hopeful we’ll be flying hydrogen aircraft.”
