EasyJet targets 1m bankers

EasyJet today set out the details of its ambitious plans to expand into the corporate travel market, hiring a London salesforce in a bid to win big City clients like Goldman Sachs to its budget formula.

In a bid to encroach on traditional carriers' most precious market, the lucrative business travel whose recovery helped British Airways return to profit last year, easyJet has hired a team of agents to sign up big businesses to fly their executives using its new "flexifare" offering.

Chief executive Carolyn McCall told the Evening Standard she expects to sign up nearly one million bankers, lawyers and other executives in the first few years of operating the new service, which gives businessmen unlimited changes to tickets up to two hours before departure, priority boarding and no extra charges to check in a suitcase.

Some nine million business travellers use easyjet each year, 18% of its 50 million annual passengers. McCall said she expected that to go above 21%, or 10.5 million executives, when the flexifare package goes live on the carrier's website this summer.

McCall even believes she can win over the likes of Goldman Sachs bankers to her orange seats, saying easyJet has long been a popular choice for entrepreneurs, but, post-recession, corporate culture had changed to expand the market.