The Met Office is to provide on-site meteorological services for easyJet as part of a new five year partnership with Europe's leading airline. The agreement strengthens an existing relationship between the two organisations, following a successful integration of Met Office meteorological services during the winter months.
easyJet, which operates on over 600 routes across more than 30 countries with a fleet of over 200 Airbus aircraft, will have Met Office meteorologists based at its Operations Control Centre in Luton to provide dedicated weather-related advice to support its winter operations.
The partnership will help easyJet to mitigate the effect of weather and ensure that the airline can get passengers to their destinations every day. It will assist easyJet’s operational performance and minimise disruption across its extensive network due to weather impact. Working directly alongside operations staff, Met Office meteorologists will provide the latest weather information, forecast graphics and risk probabilities on demand. Flight crew will also receive daily weather briefings to enable improved planning.
The partnership also sees easyJet benefit from Met Office expertise year-round with access to the its web-based network planning tool ClearFlight, as well as telephone weather briefings by dedicated meteorologists at its headquarters in Exeter.
“The Met Office has grown to understand our operation and the things that we are looking for. As a result they provide us with a tailor-made solution, including information specific to our wide-ranging European network, which enables us to fully prepare for any adverse weather conditions that could have the potential to cause disruption to our flights and enable us to make contingency plans so we can continue to deliver an ontime programme of flights for our passengers” said Hugh McConnellogue, Network Operations Manager, easyJet.
“Our continued partnership with easyJet is a great example of how the Met Office’s world-leading science and weather information is being applied directly to the aviation industry to improve safety and operational efficiency,” said Jon Dutton, Met Office. “It’s very much a two-way relationship; we are part of the team and understand how our meteorological forecasting directly impacts on operations, helping them to make confident weather decisions.”
This relationship builds upon Met Office’s existing five year contract to provide an on-site forecasting service at Heathrow Airport.
