The boss of Easyjet is to stand down after steering the airline through the pandemic.
Johan Lundgren will be replaced by finance boss Kenton Jarvis at the start of next year.
The pair worked together at rival Tui, where Lundgren rose to deputy chief executive before taking the helm at Easyjet in 2017, replacing Carolyn McCall, who is now the boss of ITV.
But Lundgren’s tenure has been far from smooth.
Easyjet suffered major turbulence during the pandemic as lockdowns and travel restrictions brought the industry to its knees.
Departures: Easyjet boss Johan Lundgren will be replaced by finance boss Kenton Jarvis at the start of next year
He then had to fight for his job after Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder and largest shareholder, tried to get him sacked.
Asked if had any regrets, he said: ‘Gosh, yes. You don’t do this unless you also think that should have been done better.
‘But the things that really matter we got right.’
Lundgren landed in hot water in 2019 when he raised the price of the ticket to Madrid to £1,000 after two British teams qualified for football’s Champions League final that year.
He said the hike was driven by the ‘enormous’ surge in demand.
The group posted losses of £350million for the six months to the end of March.
This was down from losses of £411million in the same period the year before.
Easyjet has pinned its hopes on another record summer.
It will be boosted by new bases in Birmingham and Alicante, and booming demand for packages.
But shares fell 6 per cent, or 31.7p, to 497.7p yesterday.
Russ Mould, at AJ Bell, said: ‘The negative share price reaction implies the market doesn’t approve and investors wanted an outsider to shake things up.’
