Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us here to discuss the easyJet's H1 Results for 2021 . I'd actually like to start to introduce my colleague that I have with me here, who's going to help me talk through the presentation and also take any questions that you might have here at the end. We're going to leave lots of time for questions as well. I have Kenton Jarvis, who is the company's Chief Financial Officer with me here, the Chief Operating Officer, Peter Bellew over here, Sophie Dekkers, our Chief Commercial Officer here, and also Garry Wilson, who's the Chief Executive Officer of easyJet holidays here. You should have been sent the slides, I think, alongside with the statement, and that is also available on the corporate website. I'll talk you through the presentation, and we're starting on slide number two. This past year has been nothing if not extraordinary.
This time last year, we were a month into an 11-week grounding. Absolutely unimaginable only a few weeks earlier. Over the course of 2021, international leisure travel was made illegal from the U.K. Everyone at the airline has had to contend with huge challenges, adapting schedules, and help customers navigate through the myriad of restrictions imposed across Europe. It's certainly not an overstatement to say that 2020 has been the toughest year the aviation industry has ever faced. Finally, this week, we have been able to resume our international flying from the U.K. and Europe and is restarting traveling again. easyJet is well-positioned to lead post-pandemic recovery. What the pandemic has shown me is the resilience and the quality of people we have right across the business at easyJet.
The effort and the sheer volume of actions that have been delivered, it's just unbelievable, and I am so very proud of the organization. The challenges have also brought out the best in us. As the all-important vaccination program took off, our crew volunteered in their hundreds to help out at vaccination centers, where many trained as vaccinators. People ask, "What is the orange spirit?" This past 12 months has demonstrated this in buckets loads. Our people are so important, and I would really like to take the opportunity to thank them all for a fantastic effort throughout this difficult time. I would also like to take the opportunity to officially welcome Kenton and Sophie to our leadership team.
Kenton started in January and has hit the ground running by continuing to strengthen our liquidity position, accelerate our focus on cost reductions and supporting the business to ensure that we are ready to ramp up through this summer period. Sophie has been with the company now for a number of years, and she joined the leadership team here late last year, and she has been absolutely instrumental in ensuring that we maintain flexibility in our schedule development and allowed us to focus on delivering a profitable flying schedule since the start of the pandemic. They are now part of an EMB that is as strong as I have seen it in my time at easyJet, which makes me also very confident about the future we have in front of us.
I'm going to hand over to Kenton, who's going to talk you through the numbers update.
Thank you, Johan. Good morning, everyone. Starting on slide four with the key performance indicators. The ongoing travel restrictions across Europe and the extended lockdown in the U.K. have impacted demand significantly. We've continued to maintain a flexible but disciplined approach to capacity planning with flying focusing on generating positive contribution. In the first half, our capacity decreased by 85%, as we remain focused on operating an optimal flying program. Passenger numbers of 4.1 million were down 89%, and our load factor was 63.7%, which is down 27 percentage points. We saw an increase in our average sector length of 15%. This was due to a reduction in German domestic flying and a temporary increase in the mix of beach flying compared to city flying.
The changing level of travel restrictions caused a significant reduction in capacity, which has clearly had an impact on our revenue and cost per seat metrics. This can be seen on the slide. On slide five, we've broken down the KPIs into quarters. The first quarter saw frequent changes in travel restrictions throughout Europe, and from mid-December onwards, a new variant of the virus resulted in Tier 4 restrictions being imposed across much of the U.K. During Q1, we flew 4.3 million customers, which was 18% of 2019 capacity levels, and made rapid changes to the schedule in response to demand and changing travel restrictions. The rapidly changing environment of Q1 was then followed by a full lockdown in the U.K. announced on the 4th of January, when international non-essential travel from the U.K. became illegal.
The U.K. lockdown continued throughout Q2, alongside a third wave of virus spreading across Europe. We therefore further optimized our schedule in Q2, flying just 2.1 million passengers or 9% of 2019 capacity levels. Load factors were softer in the second quarter, particularly in the U.K., where international leisure travel remained illegal. Throughout this period, we proactively managed our yields to ensure that easyJet remains price competitive on key routes while maintaining profitable flying on those routes where demand is more inelastic. The revenue per seat is clearly impacted by the lower load factors throughout H1, and the cost per seat can be seen to go up in Q2 as the fixed proportion of our cost base was spread across even fewer seats flown. Moving on to the income statement on slide six. Total revenue decreased to GBP 240 million for the half.
This breaks down as GBP 170 million from passenger revenue and GBP 70 million from ancillary revenue. The total headline costs, excluding fuel, decreased by 57% to GBP 868 million. I'll provide more detail on our cost per seat drivers in a moment. Since the start of the pandemic, the majority of easyJet's fundraising has been in foreign currency, including sale and leasebacks and UKEF facility, both in US dollars, and the EUR 1.2 billion of bond issuance. Since raising this debt, the pound has strengthened, which has therefore reduced the size of the liability in sterling terms. As such, we recorded a GBP 24 million foreign exchange gain arising from this retranslation of monetary assets and liabilities held on the balance sheet. This gain is shown within headline costs. We've highlighted it to be fully transparent. Fuel costs decreased to this GBP 97 million in the half, reflecting the reduction in capacity.
As a result, easyJet has delivered a headline loss before tax of GBP 701 million, which is within our guidance from the pre-close trading update. On a constant currency basis, the headline loss before tax is GBP 729 million. The non-headline items are principally driven by a GBP 60 million gain relating to the 35 sale and leaseback transactions undertaken in the period. A GBP 29 million net charge was recognized in the period for fair value adjustments relating primarily to the discontinuation of hedge accounting, driven once again by the reduced commercial flying during the pandemic. Over the last 12 months, easyJet has been significantly over-hedged from both a jet fuel and a currency perspective. easyJet continues to hedge contractual exposures like leased aircraft and CapEx, but has decreased the amount of operational hedges that are taken out for future periods until there's more certainty over capacity.
There is a GBP 25 million credit to non-headline items due to the release of restructuring provisions following constructive negotiations with our trade unions. These discussions have led to further concessions, improved productivity, and the introduction of seasonal contracts, which have allowed for a reduction in the estimated costs associated with restructuring. This has led to a total group loss before tax of GBP 645 million compared to the GBP 353 million last year. Now moving on to the revenue per seat slide on slide seven. It should be noted that the analysis of revenue per seat is not particularly meaningful when capacity is extremely low, but I'll walk you through the waterfall. Total revenue per seat decreased by 35% at constant currency, and it was driven by the following.
The block labeled external events refers to the strong prior year comparison of H1 2020, which included the bankruptcy of Thomas Cook. If stripped out, this would have decreased the RPS in the prior year by GBP 2.11. A decrease in ancillary revenue of GBP 2.44 on a per seat basis is driven by the impact of lower load factors. However, this variance will be positive if viewed on a revenue per passenger basis. Our new Standard Plus fare and a higher mix of customers taking pre-allocated seating and checking in bags have increased ancillary revenue per passenger flown. Of course, the major impact affecting RPS over the first year was COVID itself, which had a negative impact of GBP 15.05 on a per seat basis.
This is due to lower load factors on the reduced capacity flown, but also as a result of mix changes and our focus on remaining competitive on key routes. Finally, when including a GBP 0.93 per seat positive impact from currency, easyJet's reported revenue per seat for the half decreased by 34%. Moving on to cost and cost per seat on slide eight. As highlighted earlier in the income statement, group headline costs, when excluding fuel and the balance sheet FX revaluation gain, reduced by 57% on a reported basis, driven by lower volumes, but also the material savings achieved in the cost out program across many areas of the business.
Analysis of costs on a per seat basis is not particularly meaningful when capacity is extremely low, which is why we've highlighted at the top of this slide the change in absolute cost in a constant currency and shown this in percentage terms during the half. Airport charges and ground handling were reduced by 88% to GBP 82 million in absolute terms, and that was driven by reduced volumes, but also by contract negotiations. Crew costs were reduced by 44% due to right-sizing our establishment and the introduction of new seasonal and part-time contracts following the successful conclusion of constructive negotiations with our union, as well, of course, as the use of furlough schemes across the network. There was a reduction in ownership costs of 9%.
This was driven by reduced depreciation on maintenance as a result of lower flying volumes and the benefit from discounting maintenance reserves following an increase in U.S. interest rates. This reduction was largely offset by an increase in the proportion of leased aircraft within the fleet and increased interest costs on our debt facilities. Overheads and other income decreased by 45% due to the cost out program, which has seen a line-by-line review of easyJet's entire cost base. In particular, marketing and selling costs were reduced by 77%, and disruption costs were reduced to almost zero. Navigation costs were reduced by 84% in line with sectors flown, and maintenance costs were reduced by 43% with successful contract renegotiations, plus savings from bringing some of our line and light maintenance activities in-house. This has also helped to improve our on-time performance.
Johan and Peter will be able to give you more color shortly on the ongoing cost initiatives. There was a GBP 2.81 per seat adverse fuel impact, and this was due in part to a one-off credit taken in H1 last year of GBP 55 million, which came from the sale of EU ETS credits. As you can see in the waterfall chart here, airline headline cost per seat at constant currency raised by 148%, primarily as a result of the decreased capacity flown. The two bars on the right of the chart illustrate the benefit from foreign exchange movements in the first half of a net GBP 3.39 per seat. After taking account of all these factors, the net airline headline cost per seat for the first half was GBP 145. Now for more detail on the impact of fuel prices, currency, and hedging shown on slide nine.
The average market price for jet fuel for the half was GBP 382 per metric ton, down GBP 181 on the same period in the prior year. However, after taking into account our commodity and currency hedging, the sterling cost of fuel per metric ton was GBP 502, which is a GBP 26 increase compared with H1 2020. Moving on to foreign exchange, the euro rate fluctuated between EUR 1.08 and EUR 1.17 during the half, and the average market rate for the dollar was $1.33 to GBP 1 , with easyJet achieving an effective rate of $1.37 for H1, which is $ 0.03 above the $1.34 achieved last year. Net-net, there was a headline GBP 3 million positive impact from currency movements, which includes those within revenue, fuel, and other cost lines. Moving on to slide 10. easyJet has moved decisively to underpin its strong liquidity position.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, easyJet has raised over GBP 5.5 billion in liquidity from a diversified range of funding sources. In March, easyJet subsidiary, easyJet FinCo B.V. , issued a EUR 1.2 billion, which was heavily oversubscribed, bond under the EMTN program. The bond matures in 2028 and has a coupon of 1.875%. In January, we signed a $1.87 billion facility on commercial terms with a number of banks. This was supported by a partial guarantee from UK Export Finance under the Export Development Guarantee scheme. This long-term five-year facility is on commercial terms and helped reprofile our debt, and around GBP 600 million of it remains undrawn. The facility also requires less security than our earlier loans, which means that on a like-for-like basis, our level of encumbrance is reduced.
In conjunction with the GBP 1.4 billion we've raised from sale and leaseback transactions, these measures have enabled us to improve our debt maturity profile by repaying shorter-dated debt, which we took out earlier in the pandemic, and these are shaded gray in the spider chart on the left-hand side of this slide. As at the 31st of March 2021, we have unrestricted access to circa GBP 2.9 billion of liquidity. The combination of all these measures has helped easyJet to maintain its investment-grade credit rating in the face of the pandemic. Moving on to the debt maturity profile on slide 11. As I mentioned earlier, we've optimized our debt maturity profile by replacing the shorter-term RCF and term loans with longer-term facilities. The remaining GBP 300 million tranche of the CCFF is due to be repaid in November 2021.
easyJet has no other debt maturities outstanding until FY 2023, excluding, of course, the ongoing leases, which are shown in gray on this chart. Moving on to cash management on slide 12. easyJet has maintained a disciplined approach to capacity and cash management and has achieved material savings from its major cost-out program. This has enabled us to achieve cash outs on a fixed cost plus Capital Expenditure basis of GBP 39 million per week in the first quarter and GBP 38 million per week in the second quarter, which is tracking slightly better than our guidance of GBP 40 million per week. Working capital movements were negative in the first quarter, as we paid the variable cost related to the flying operating in the summer last year. There was only a minimal working capital outflow in Q2 when we were operating an optimized and somewhat more predictable schedule.
Cash refunds paid to customers during the first half totaled GBP 254 million, which means we've now refunded GBP 1.1 billion to our customers since the start of this pandemic. We are now processing all refunds in under seven days. Unlike many of our competitors, easyJet has sought to offer its customers industry-leading flexibility and options during the pandemic, including the choice of refunds or vouchers, and now the ability to move flights without fees up to two hours ahead of departure. The amount of flight vouchers currently in issuance is relatively low, with a value of approximately GBP 250 million. The closing balance of cash and money market deposits as at the 31st of March 2021 was GBP 2.335 billion. Moving on to H1 cash flow bridge on slide 13.
As we said, easyJet took swift and decisive action to raise a net GBP 1.57 billion during the period after the repayment of short-term debt. This was achieved from a diverse range of funding sources, which I've already described. The bars on the right of the chart summarize the cash burn across the half of GBP 1.4 billion. This was split GBP 969 million in Q1 and GBP 468 million in Q2. On slide 14, we can see the balance sheet, which continues to be rated as one of the strongest in the sector. At the 31st of March, we had net debt of GBP 2 billion, which comprised of cash and cash equivalents of GBP 2.3 billion, borrowings of GBP 3.3 billion, and GBP 1 billion of lease liabilities.
The sale and leasebacks which we have transacted on 58 aircraft over the last 12 months are reflected in the decrease in property, plant, and equipment, the increase in the right of use assets, and of course, the increase in lease liabilities. The significant decrease in the balance of derivative financial instruments is largely due to the maturing derivatives and the increase in jet fuel prices. The unearned revenue and trade and other payables balances are both relatively low, reflecting the reduced flying in the previous quarter and the impact of travel restrictions on forward bookings. As a reminder, there was a GBP 455 million swing last year when unearned revenue relating to flight cancellations in March and April had to be reclassified as trade and other payables.
As at the 31st of March, our liquidity position was GBP 5.2 million per 100 seats, representing material headroom compared to our target liquidity buffer of GBP 2.6 million per 100 seats. Moving on to our fleets on slide 15. In response to COVID, we would have reduced the fleet size by around 10% in the space of a year. We retained significant flexibility within the current fleet plan to expand or contract the fleet, depending on our expectations of future demand. Just to explain the graph, the top dotted line of this graph illustrates the current maximum arrangements with Airbus, as well as our current lessors. The solid orange line represents our base plan to the end of FY 2021, and the lower gray line represents contractual minimum fleet size.
It should be noted that the chart does not include any future potential opportunistic lease additions that we may choose to the fleet. We're redelivering 51 aircraft over the coming 15 months, and of those, we believe that we can extend 30 to 35 at very attractive rates in the event that we see unmet demand. It should also be noted that as three operating leases have scheduled redelivery dates in the six weeks prior to the 30th of September, the normal risk of delayed redelivery execution may cause the FY 2021 year-end fleet numbers to be slightly higher than 307. We retain ownership of 56% of our fleet, and we have 41% of the fleet unencumbered. The chart on slide 16 summarizes our expectations for gross capital expenditure over the remainder of FY 2021 and the coming two years.
In FY 2021, we expect to spend GBP 700 million, with only a very small fraction of that to be spent on predelivery payments for new aircraft, as represented by the orange stripe in the first bar. Maintenance expenditure covers the cost of maintenance events to be performed on our aircraft. Lease payments, including the capital elements of existing, and of course, the new leases signed as part of our sale and leaseback program, has led to an increase in the dark blue stripe. Gross CapEx for the financial year 2022 is expected to be circa GBP 900 million and to be circa GBP 1 billion in the financial year 2023. The increase in CapEx from our FY 2021 level represents a resumption of aircraft deliveries from FY 2022 onwards as we return to growth.
Eight aircraft are now due to be delivered in FY 2022. That is down from the 27 scheduled before deferrals were renegotiated with Airbus at the end of 2019. Seven aircraft are now fall due in FY 2023, again, down from the 35 scheduled for delivery before the agreed deferrals. In addition, in FY 2023, we are also including the delivery of a number of spare LEAP engines needed for the growing neo fleet. The lease cost in FY 2022 reduces due to the returning leased aircraft, while maintenance costs increase as we catch up on maintenance activities deferred from 2021. All of our future deliveries are neos, which generate 15% less carbon emissions and 50% less noise on takeoff and landing. Moving on to slide 17.
easyJet continues to hedge contractual exposures such as leases and CapEx, but has decreased the amount of operational hedging that is taken out for future periods until there's greater clarity of demand. In H1, there was a net charge of GBP 29 million in non-headline items related to the fair value adjustment for hedge discontinuation. This compares to GBP 164 million in the same period last year. There was also a GBP12 million credit to headline costs from the fair value movement on discontinued hedges after they were marked as ineffective. Moving on to slide 18 and our forward-looking guidance. Based on the current travel restrictions in the markets in which we operate, easyJet expects to fly around 15% of 2019 capacity in Q3, with an expectation that capacity levels will start to increase from June onwards.
In the U.K., of course, this will heavily depend on the number of countries added to the green list. Late announcements on changes to travel restrictions, in particular, the very short notice from the U.K. government of green, amber, and red countries, will impact load factors as airlines have to make late capacity additions to meet surges in demand, which will drive an even later booking pattern. We maintain significant flexibility to ramp the capacity up quickly as conditions change, and this ramp-up will involve increasing variable costs during Q3 as we bring pilots and cabin crew off furlough in readiness for the summer peak. We remain focused on disciplined schedule of cash-generative flying. Our cost-out program is expected to generate around GBP 500 million of savings in FY 2021 to help offset the cost impact from COVID, driving lower volumes of flying and increased ownership and financing costs.
At this stage, given the continued level of short-term uncertainty, it would not be appropriate to provide any further financial guidance for the FY 2021 financial year. Customers are booking close to departure, and visibility remains very limited. I'll now hand you back to Johan.
Thank you very much for that, Kenton. easyJet has been decisive in meeting the challenges of the coronavirus through delivering GBP five and a half billion of liquidity from a diverse range of funding sources, launching the largest cost efficiency program in easyJet's history, which will see cost reductions delivered across all cost lines in the business. Implementing a restructuring program, which has so far seen union or works council agreements reached in the U.K., the Netherlands, Portugal, France, and in the final stages now in Germany. Maintaining strong control of cash burn with Q2 cash burn better than guidance, remaining extremely disciplined and focused on flying, which drives a positive contribution as well as delivering cost savings as expected. Maintaining a high level of flexibility in our fleet plan whilst controlling CapEx.
We've also maintained a strong focus on continuing to deliver initiatives that will enhance our customer proposition, including launching our cabin bag offering and our Standard Plus fare. Both launched successfully, and we have seen a promising performance from them so far with improvements in margins despite the low level of flying. Finally, we have continued to hone significant flexibility in the wake of the COVID-19 grounding and have been able to get off ever more nimble turning capacity on and off, switching to where the demand is to maximize our ability to capture as many customers as possible. Crucially, this means that easyJet will be able to emerge from this crisis leaner and more efficient, making us well-positioned to bounce back quickly and strongly when demand returns. Moving on to slide 21. Safety is always our number one priority.
I'm proud to say that the work that we have done in this area, and we are consistently going ahead and to do everything we can to make sure that we always deliver this as our first priority. Guidance from EASA, ICAO, and all of the public health authorities has driven our biosecurity procedures, which were rolled out last year. As a reminder, the procedures include additional deep cleaning and disinfection of our aircraft every day. All of our customers, crew, and ground staff wear masks all the time, and the agility of our staff to ensure we and our customers comply with COVID paperwork, which changes frequently. You may know that all of our aircraft were already equipped with the HEPA air filtration systems, which filter 99.97% of airborne contaminants in the cabin, including viruses and bacteria.
These systems are the same as those used in hospitals, and through them, the cabin air gets replaced every three to four minutes. These measures will remain under review and in place for as long as is needed to ensure customers and crew are able to fly safely as the world continues to recover from the impact of the pandemic. Moving on to slide 22. We worked with leading scientists at Yale to help us establish what is needed for the safe restart of international travel. They have produced the most in-depth, robust scientific analysis. From this, easyJet can show that the U.K. government should be able to place much of Europe into the green tier.
This is because the research shows not only that travel from several countries would not affect the U.K. case rate, but most importantly, that travel to Europe would have very little impact on the hospitalizations in the U.K. This is because the success of the U.K. vaccine rollout has broken the link between cases and hospitalization. It's the same success that allows for domestic reopening. We call on to the government to provide consumers and airlines alike with some much needed clarity on where they can travel as soon as possible, and in the meantime, to do all possible to drive down the cost of testing. We are ready and able to ramp up our flight to safely take people away this summer. Moving on to slide 23 and what's happening in Europe.
While the U.K. government remains extremely cautious in its reopening of international travel, European governments are moving forward in a more pragmatic and confident way. Let's not forget that Europe accounts for around 50% of our capacity. For example, in stark contrast to U.K.'s approach, Germany is allowing restriction-free travel for vaccinated individuals from low-risk countries. Spain has said that it plans to remove the pre-departure test requirement for U.K. travelers. The Netherlands has no restrictions for travelers from countries with prevalence rates of less than 150 per 100,000, and no pre-departure test for anyone. This week, the EU agreed to reopen its borders to vaccinated third country travelers. This is really encouraging, we will look to maximize the opportunities we see in Europe this summer.
We all have said that safe travel is possible, and the success of the vaccination program is the key to unlocking this. Moving on to slide 24. As I said many times, customers will return. We know the underlying demand is there, and the pent-up demand is increasing day by day. In a recent customer survey we held in the U.K., this information came through strongly with the research data revealing that the average Briton has not gotten off on a holiday for 630 days, and it remains the top priority for over a third coming out of the pandemic. Well over half have been saving cash in lockdown to spend on holidays in the sun, on average, nearly GBP 6,000.
The average Briton has stored up 33 days of annual leave to use in 2021, as majority of Brits rolled over at least five days from 2020 due to the pandemic. Six in 10 said they will be making their holiday extra special this year, and 68% said they are planning to make up for lost time exploring new places. Taking this information into account and knowing that restrictions across our network will change, we've had to ensure we were prepared to deal with these changes, but more importantly, to also take advantage of the opportunities that will come our way.
As I said earlier, we have continued to hone significant flexibility in our schedule planning in the wake of the COVID-19 grounding and have been able to get ever more nimble turning capacity on and off, switching to where the demand is to maximize our ability to capture as many customers as possible. A good example of our flexibility is shown when following a surge in bookings to green countries, we put on over 100,000 extra seats on sales within a 24-hour period windows, mainly to Portugal. We've also seen the flexibility to ramp up our capacity to 90% of our current fleet if the demand is there, and also to reallocate aircraft across Europe to maximize our ability to take advantage of the opportunities that is available.
Another key advantage we have is that easyJet is seen to be a great value airline offering fares that, in most cases, are lower than our head-to-head competitor, but also that we're an airline with values and have been for many years now. easyJet was the world's first major airline to offset 100% of the CO2 from our flights and our ground operations on behalf of our customers. Since then, we have retired over 3 million carbon credits. As we know this is the right thing to do, but more importantly, also it is what our customers want us to do. When doing a comparison to our main head-to-head competitors, easyJet is well in front, and this will continue to drive customers towards us when booking travel. We also have partnerships with Wright Electric and Airbus.
We're developing electric and hydrogen engines, which will be the next phase of aircraft engine, I will update you on these later in the presentation. Our values don't just stop with our sustainability strategy. This summer, we will be continuing our onboard collections to support UNICEF, and this builds on a partnership dating back from 2014. Since then, we've raised GBP 14.8 million for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. easyJet Summer 2021 onboard collection will contribute to easyJet's global effort to deliver 2 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021, and it complements the amazing and fantastic work from many of our crew who volunteered on the U.K. vaccination program. Moving on to slide 26. We talked many times before about easyJet's structural advantages, and never have they been more valuable than now.
Our network of number one and number two positions at primary airports is unmatched. It drives higher yields. One effect of the pandemic will be to create new opportunities for us to expand. The recovery will come first in the short-haul leisure market, where our business model is primarily focused, and this is also where we have recently grown our share in key leisure markets that matter, as well as announced the launch of two seasonal bases in Málaga and Faro . Not only have we got the leading positions in Europe's favorite leisure destinations, but when business travel returns, and it will, we expect to take market share with customers who will gravitate towards value, as we've seen in previous downturns. The high caliber of our people is a key source of differentiation for easyJet compared to other airlines.
Despite the challenges of COVID and the resulting restructure, we continue to attract and retain the best customer-facing talent, which drives excellent service, CSAT, and customer loyalty. The easyJet brand ranks as the best value for money, and it's the first-choice brand in most of our home markets. As sustainability is becoming ever more important for consumers when choosing brands, and easyJet is a clear industry leader with its efficient operation, carbon offsetting, and focus on future technology. Finally, we have a significant cost advantage versus our competitors in the primary airports which we serve. The restructure we have undertaken is further strengthening that competitive advantage as our cost base becomes more flexible and more seasonally aligned. These structural advantages gives us the best foundation on which to build for the recovery, and I'd now like to talk about these in a little bit more depth.
Moving on to slide 27. At easyJet, safety, operational, and digital security, combined with our most valuable asset, our people, are always our number one priority. We combine these with focusing on delivering the following six Strategic Initiatives that will ensure we are leader in the recovery of the industry in the coming years. These initiatives are Network Strategy, Customer Excellence, Product Portfolio Evolution, easyJet holidays, Cost Reduction Program, and Sustainability. Myself and other members of the team now will take you through them in more detail. With that, I'm going to hand you over to Sophie.
Thank you, Johan. Moving on to slide 29. As we've discussed before, easyJet has 57 number one or number two positions in airports across Europe, the airports which our customers actually want to fly to. These are big markets. We are number one or number two across London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Manchester, Lyon, and Basel, for example. This network provides a competitive advantage which is not easily replicated. We do expect changes in the competitive landscape in these markets in the wake of COVID, but we have the positions and market leadership to compete vigorously. We are looking at these and other markets and will be ready to move and capture opportunities as they arise. In addition to the existing lead we have in our core markets, we see significant opportunities for growth.
In particular, we will be further bolstering our lead positions in Western Europe's top leisure destinations, adding new bases to provide network breadth and flexibility, as well as unlocking cost benefits, managing seasonality, and importantly, supporting the growth of easyJet holidays. This approach will ensure that easyJet remains top of mind for customers and is seen as the local airline. We will also look to expand in an opportunistic but disciplined way through a network of focus cities. This is a low-risk way of serving large origin markets, creating a leading offer without necessarily basing assets there. Birmingham is a great example, but also Copenhagen that is now linked to 12 bases across our network. Moving on to slide 30. The network we have built up over time enables us to be efficient with our choices, with a focus on higher yielding bases serving both business and leisure customers.
As you can see in this bar chart, we've cut capacity at a number of our less profitable bases, and in some cases, have removed all base aircraft. Airports such as Stansted and Newcastle are only served with inbound aircraft following last year's restructuring. We've also cut capacity materially in some French and Italian bases, as well as in Berlin. Capacity investments are still maturing in line with our usual maturity curve for those network points where we haven't reduced flying. We will, however, continue to build strength in our most profitable slot-constrained airports. Opportunities are likely to arise at these primary airports over the coming months as legacy carriers withdraw capacity and restructure. The scale and flexibility of our network enable us to take advantage of these changes in the competitive landscape. Moving on to slide 31.
Over the past six months, we've taken a number of key decisions to further optimize our schedule development. Our schedule for summer 2022 went on sale earlier than ever before in order to enable our customers to easily transfer any bookings which were canceled due to COVID. Never before have we had four seasons available for sale at the same time. Our customers love the flexibility, and it significantly reduced the propensity of customers to request refunds. In response to international travel restrictions, we have shifted capacity onto domestic routes, in particular in the U.K., France, and Italy. We have been disciplined about focusing on cash-generative flying, and many of these domestic routes are performing very well. We've also launched new domestic leisure routes to capitalize on the increase in staycations.
These have included Belfast to Inverness, Glasgow to Newquay, Manchester to Newquay, and Gatwick to Newquay in the U.K., Bergamo to Olbia in Italy, and additional capacity from mainland France to Corsica. In order to capitalize on expected leisure demand this summer, we are boosting our network point in Birmingham, launching a number of routes such as Málaga, Alicante, Corfu, Faro, and Palma, served by aircraft from our seasonal destination bases. I'm very proud of how agile the team have been in responding to changes in demand due to travel restrictions or competitor announcements. We've been able to put on sale additional capacity within 24 hours, such as launching Newcastle to Faro, served by our destination base following the U.K. government's green list announcement. Going forward, we will continue to focus on our core markets such as Gatwick, Milan Malpensa, Paris, and Amsterdam.
We will seek to capitalize on opportunities arising from the retrenchment of legacy carriers, enhancing our already strong slot portfolio in these key network points. For example, this summer in Italy, we're launching Linate to Catania and Linate to Palermo. In France, increasing our capacity on Orly to Nice and Orly to Montpellier. We're also going to be building out our destination bases as these have proven themselves to offer greater network agility to respond to changing demand. The seasonal bases we've launched this summer in Faro and Málaga not only bring cost advantages, but they enable us to be more nimble in our scheduling, such as when we added capacity between Berlin and our seasonal base in Palma to respond to a rapid change in demand. We are looking to embed this kind of flexibility into the structure of our network for the future.
Of course, we are also focused on expanding our leisure network in order to support the growth of easyJet holidays, particularly in the U.K. regions. Moving on to slide 32 to focus on ancillaries. easyJet has a number of exciting avenues for driving ancillary revenue growth in the coming years. In January, we launched a new fare class called Standard Plus. This package includes upfront seat selection, access to easyJet Plus bag drops, speedy boarding, one cabin bag, and an additional under-seat cabin bag. We had identified a gap in our current propositions in terms of fare offerings, and we expect this to increase average booking values over time. In February, we launched our new cabin bag policy. The ability to bring a large overhead cabin bag on board is now bundled with upfront and extra legroom seating.
The seating and bag packages are actively yield managed and dynamically priced. There are currently between 42 and 63 of these premium packages available per flight. The new policy is expected to have a positive impact on boarding efficiency as well as on-time performance. This is our first step with cabin bags, and as of the launch of Standard Plus, it is already having a positive impact on revenue. We plan to launch a standalone cabin bag proposition later this year. Moving on to slide 33. Our brand and customer proposition is clear and well understood, providing ease and value. Not only is this winning with our customers, but will be ever more important during the recovery. In times of uncertainty, customers look to the brands they trust and that offer them the best value.
easyJet has a leading industry position in price versus worth metrics and is also seeing positive movement in brand trust scores across all markets. Moreover, despite the challenges of the pandemic, our brand scores, including first-choice brand score, have seen positive movement across all major markets, U.K., France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and customer satisfaction increased to 80% in half one, an improvement of 2.9 percentage points versus H1 2020.
COVID has changed customer habits, moving them more online than ever before, and we already have many years of digital leadership and innovation under our belt. Our customer excellence initiative has delivered a number of actions during the first half, including updating our Protection Promise to give customers even more flexibility this summer. Freedom to Change gives the customers the ability to transfer their flight fee-free this summer anytime up to two hours before departure to any flights currently on sale and to any destination on our network. Enhanced Travel Restriction Protection ensures that if a trip is impacted by a lockdown, travel ban, or mandatory hotel quarantine this summer, the customer can transfer their flight for free to a later date, anytime up to two hours before departure, or opt for a voucher or refund, even if their flight is still operating.
We have also streamlined our easyJet flight vouchers, which can be redeemed online quickly and easily when making a booking. Refund processing times have been further decreased to ensure customers are getting their money back as quickly as possible. We have launched our chatbots, giving customers the opportunity to get answers to their queries quickly and easily without having to pick up the phone. I will now hand over to Garry to give you an update on easyJet holidays.
Thanks, Sophie. Our holidays business model with no hotel commitments, 93% variable costs, and a low operating cost base has meant that we've been very well-placed in adapting to the changing environment over the last year. In light of recent government announcements, we've ramped up our operation extremely quickly. This week we've started taking customers away on holiday once again to Portugal and Gibraltar. Having access to the entire easyJet network means that we're ready to scale and ramp up as soon as more destinations open. We've put winter 2021 and summer 2022 seasons on sale early. As a result, we've been able to give customers even more choice, retaining over 60% of those customers affected so far in 2021. Our summer 2022 bookings have seen considerable momentum, being 190% up in March and April versus the same booking period in 2019.
As a result of having all three seasons on sale, our bookings are significantly ahead year-on-year for all three seasons. We have added more flexibility to our protection promise for holiday customers for this summer in line with the traffic light system to help further boost consumer confidence. For amber list destinations, customers can change their booking up to 24 hours before travel. We have also introduced to our website the ability for customers to navigate their holiday searches using the traffic light system. In the week following the announcement of the green list countries, we saw overall holidays program bookings rise by 250%, with Portugal and Madeira rising by 1,240% versus the same three-day period of the previous week, and we have seen encouraging levels of bookings for the rest of the holidays network for the latter part of the summer and into future seasons.
We have recently added bed bank connectivity to Hilton, InterContinental Hotels, Accor, and Radisson Hotels in order to give customers a wider choice, particularly through our city breaks program, and have signed direct contracts with an additional 45 flagship beach hotels which were previously exclusive to our competitors. The opening of the high street throughout the U.K. has given us the opportunity to drive bookings through our travel agent partner network, plus giving access to a whole new set of customers, which now accounts for a material proportion of our overall sales. As such, we saw a 27% increase in weekly revenues as a result of the high street opening with lockdown restrictions easing.
Finally, building on the work of the airline and in line with restarting our operations, we are really pleased to announce today that we will be offsetting carbon emissions from our holidays, so fuel from flights and transfers and energy from hotel stays, making easyJet holidays the first major tour operator to do this. I'll now hand you to Kenton.
Thank you, Garry. Moving on to slide 34. Last year, easyJet announced its largest ever cost out program, and since then, there's been a line-by-line review undertaken of the entire easyJet cost base, with all costs challenged down to the lowest level. The H1 program delivered savings ahead of internal targets, and the full-year program is on track to deliver circa GBP 500 million worth of savings FY 2021. Almost half of the savings from the 2021 cost program will be sustainable going forward, which will allow us to mitigate some of the cost headwinds we face following the impact of COVID, specifically around navigation charges as Eurocontrol seeks to recover their loss in fees for 2021, ownership costs from the sale and leaseback of 58 transactions, and financing costs on additional debt raised.
The cost program is not a one-time exercise. We're already well underway with the second phase, continuing to identify further cost savings for 2022 and beyond. We'll be operating a zero-based budgeting approach going forward and keeping the focus and challenge on every cost line. Peter will now add some color to the major areas of cost saving achieved.
Thank you, Kenton. Moving on to slide 35. Over the last 12 months, we've embedded a culture of questioning each and every cost constantly. A GBP 0.05 saving on 100 million passengers is GBP 5 million, and that's the daily mantra. The cost program was planned regardless of COVID, but we've accelerated the cost program. Our cash burn is as guided, and we are being very careful with every penny. I want to thank our trade union partners who have worked very hard to help us to deliver significant cost and productivity savings while minimizing the number of redundancies. For the first time in many years, we've up-to-date union agreements everywhere except Italy, where talks start soon, and Berlin cabin crew members will be finalized in June. We put in place a country-by-country solution with a combination of seasonal and part-time contracts alongside mostly voluntary redundancies.
The changes result in a 30% reduction in full-time equivalent crew, while aircraft numbers reduced by 7%. We benefit from a 16% reduction in crew cost and will separately see a 20% uplift in productivity in future years. We have the flexibility to grow back quickly as demand recovers, and we've also agreed two-year pay freezes in most countries. On flexibility, for example, 85% of our U.K. pilots have agreed various part-time and seasonal work options. We agreed reductions in base pay in many countries with simpler rostering rules. We made some good savings in redundancy costs by working closely with our union partners. Productivity will permanently improve. Our French unions have given us a new lower cost base in France to attack the increased competition from Transavia Air France. Our new low-cost seasonal bases in Faro and Málaga open on the 1st of June.
easyJet has permanently reduced our crew costs while addressing structural and productivity challenges with our old crew model. We will continue to utilize furlough agreements in all jurisdictions throughout FY 2021. I'd like to thank our crew for offering great service for our customers and embracing the extra safety training in 2021. Moving on to slide 26. We continue negotiations with more than 145 airports across our network. The airports that deliver the best long-term deals for 2022 will get the largest growth. Network airports trying to increase costs will lose growth opportunities and aircraft quickly. We are now constantly doing a line-by-line review of all ground handling costs. To date, we've permanent ground operation savings of over GBP 14 million and on call centers of GBP 7 million. New handling contracts focus on driving safety and on-time performance while reducing our costs.
We have a 25% reduction in call center costs to 2027 with greatly improved customer service and technology. Airport revenue per flight doubled in 2021. On-board bags charging went live on time and on target. Our next phase of the on-board bag product is on track for delivery in 2021. We are completing a new self-service disruption manager app, which will reduce our disruption costs. On property, we're doing a line-by-line review of all buildings and car parks, which is greatly helped by the rapid adoption of new crew technology in 2020. Moving on to slide 37. Our wide-ranging changes and improvements in engineering and maintenance has freed up five spare aircraft to operate flights in summer 2022. This will not impact our resilience.
The commercial team are thrilled as five more planes is like adding almost 2% extra seats to summer 2022 fleet with no additional capital expenditure. We've maintained 95% of our aircraft in a flight-ready condition across the winter, with safety the number one priority. easyJet outsources the majority of our heavy maintenance where it is cost-effective. We've extended our Lufthansa Technik contract to 2025 and SR Technics in Malta to 2023 with cost savings and simpler work packages. We've worked hard to get certainty on costs for the long term. The granular cost savings work will be nonstop. We've extended our low-cost GE engine shop visit contract to 2023 while adjusting the timings.
We've concluded a cost-effective deal with CFM on LEAP engines and their ongoing support. Our components deal with AJ Walter has been extended to 2027 with cost savings and a new Milan parts hub, which will help on-time performance. We work closely with Airbus to create more efficient six to 12-year checks. Our end-of-lease process costs are on track. We've now completed in-sourcing our line maintenance at Berlin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Bristol, which has delivered cost savings and higher quality. Gatwick's now all done in-house with the addition of a completed third hangar bay in March 2021. Safety remains the number one focus, and we're absolutely raring to go for summer 2021. We're like a Formula One pit crew at the moment. The work we continue to do on cost is to make it sustainable.
I'd like to thank personally all our customers, staff, and the investment community for the support over the last 12 months. I'd be grateful now if Johan can update us on sustainability.
Thank you very much for that, Peter. Moving on to sustainability on slide 38. easyJet is the world's first major airline to offset 100% of its CO2 from our flights and our ground operations on behalf of our customers. Since then, we have retired over 3 million carbon credits on high-quality schemes certified to the internationally respected Verified Carbon Standard or Gold Standard. These schemes also have wider benefits for communities, livelihoods, and on biodiversity. We firmly believe it's the right thing to do while we continue to drive efficiencies in our operation today through highly efficient neo aircraft, for example, and work to encourage and support the development of radical new technologies to reinvent aviation in the future. 39.
During the relentless bad news of the pandemic, one positive strand of news emerged. That is the stream of technology breakthroughs. We have seen both the first all-electric flight take off from Cranfield, and also the first hydrogen-powered flight, both of which would've been unimaginable just a few years ago. Our own partnerships with Wright Electric and Airbus have also seen exciting developments, particularly the Airbus announcement in September of their plan to launch a zero-emissions hydrogen-powered plane by 2035. We are running joint workshops with Airbus to help inform the designs. I'm also pleased to be sitting on the Jet Zero Council set up by the U.K. government this year and tasked with making net zero emission flights a reality. Meanwhile, we've taken steps internally to enhance our carbon management and reporting, going beyond compliance to publish our Scope 3 carbon emissions and having our carbon KPIs externally verified.
We're also engaging with our customers on sustainability. It is obvious that it is a key issue for them. With 72% of European citizens saying they believe their own behavior makes a difference in tackling climate change. 49% of customers are aware of our offsetting policy, and 45% of customers are likely to choose easyJet over another airline due to this policy, both figures showing an upward year-on-year trend. As a reminder, our sustainability governance has been strengthened, with sustainability now a regular focus at the PLC board, the A and B, and at a dedicated steering committee. To summarize this on slide 14, as a result of our actions, we have the best foundation upon which to emerge strongly from the crisis.
We have a strong liquidity position, and we've launched the largest cost efficiency program in easyJet's history, which continues to see cost reductions being delivered across all cost lines in the business and is expected to deliver around GBP 500 million in savings in 2021. Our unique short-haul network and trusted brand will see customers choose easyJet when returning to the skies. Our people are what differentiates us from our competitors and are a key reason for customers choosing to fly with us, and they are the foundation upon which we build this business. Customers, they will return. We know the underlying demand is there, and there's a huge pent-up demand that is increasing day by day. easyJet Holidays is ready to respond and take advantage of the opportunities through the recovery and has become the first tour operator to offset 100% of the carbon emissions associated with its holidays.
Crucially, we retain the agility and the flexibility to rapidly ramp up to capture and serve the demand when it comes. With that, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for listening, and we are now happy to take any questions that you might have.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a telephone question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, it is star one to pose a question. We will take our first question today from James Hollins of BNP. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning, everyone. Two from me, please. The first one, whoever wants to take it. I'm just wondering what percentage of your expected or budgeted traffic is booked already for the core summer period. Just for your reference, Ryanair were talking about 20%. Can you give your thoughts on that? Secondly, including with your CapEx guidance, you're signaling a return to growth. If you gave your base case fleet, I assume it'd be higher than it was six months ago. I was just wondering why that is, what's giving you that sort of confidence to grow again. Thirdly, to Kenton specifically, welcome, and I'm just wondering, could we have your thoughts now you've settled in and specifically what you're focusing on over the next six months? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for that. I'll kick this off. We're not providing any guidance on forward bookings. The number that we have today is that we expect to fly around 15% of the capacity here for Q3. The visibility beyond that is very limited, as you know. I think also another thing to add when we start talking about future opportunities and growth, we know that there's a huge pent-up demand, and we see that this comes out as the number one thing that people want to do post-pandemic, to be able to go on that break. That's why it's been so important for us to have the flexibility in the fleet to make sure that we can capture that demand.
At the same time also make sure that, if the demand isn't there because of the restrictions being in place, that we can also have the most optimal size of the fleet. There are a number of examples, I think Sophie spoke about some of them here, where we have actually launched and captured those opportunities. That's why it's so important to keep that flexibility also going forward. Kenton.
In terms of my observations since I started with easyJet, first observation would be the quality of the management team. You've met some of them today. Sophie has been with easyJet for 14 years, the Commercial Director. She really understands yield, the management, the network, but also the company and the industry. Of course, Peter, hopefully he won't mind me saying, industry veteran. Vast operational experience and a real laser focus on cost, and that's superbly helpful when we're going through line-by-line cost reviews. Garry, of course, from a holidays perspective, very experienced as well. Knows the hotels and the hoteliers extremely well and building a variable based tour operator, very flexible, low risk tour operator on easyJet's leisure network. Of course, Johan always focused on strategy and putting the customer first.
I'm not surprised that we have industry-leading customer terms in terms of booking. Although I haven't really stepped foot in the hangar yet, from all the teams calls, you can easily tell there's a real passion in everybody who works for easyJet. They're very passionate about the company. Initial focus was on liquidity. I'm very glad that I could build on the excellent work that had already been achieved on liquidity with the issuance of the Euro bond for seven-year tenor. The cost program, getting stuck into the cost program. We're launching a second wave. We have launched a second wave with many costs already identified there. The disciplined approach on capacity management to focus on profitable flying.
One of the things I'll be looking at over the coming months is a full review of the capital structure of easyJet and therefore the key financial policies, making sure they're fit for a post-COVID world. Key financial and key accounting policies. That's where the focus is going to be.
Let's see if we got some questions. Okay. Have we lost our audience?
That means that we've been crystal clear in our presentations. they're.
I think the operator's not on.
Perhaps we lost just one person, but that person was pretty important.
Any suggestions on what we should do?
I think we should do it for the analysts and do it via phone, just a conference call.
Yeah, we should definitely do that because we need to.
We scheduled perhaps too late.[crosstalk]
Yeah. Are people hearing what I'm saying, what we're saying?
I think we are live.
From Daniel Röska. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Dan, good morning. Hi, everybody. Can you hear me, Johan?
Yes, I hear you. Sorry for that. Can I just make the point?
Perfect. Here we go.
This just proves the point that we need to get together again. We need to connect, we need to meet physically as the world will return to that. We look forward to help and support to that. Meanwhile, go ahead, Daniel.
Brilliant. I've got my first shot. I'm on my way. First for you, Johan, you talked about your network strategy, building business connectivity, leisure routes for holidays, capture slot shares. That's a lot to ask within a smaller fleet. If you needed to rank those two, business, leisure, slot shares, how would you rank them? Maybe for Sophie, given your experience in the commercial department, Johan mentioned pent-up demand. The big question is, what's pricing? I know you're not going to give us a number, but could you give us your thinking on what will influence pricing through the recovery, maybe a 12-month outlook. What are you thinking about? What are the key dynamics that will influence your fare per passenger? Lastly, on sustainability, what's the level of your ETS allowances for 2022? Do you know yet? Is there any carryover from 2021?
Maybe broader, how do you expect kind of the EU ETS, the UK ETS, and CORSIA to work together or not in the upcoming years? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks for that. In terms of the priorities, the strategy that we have for many years, and that is proven to be successful, is to focus on having leading positions at the primary airports. Having said that, nobody flies to more leisure destinations in Europe than we do, and that's clearly something that we continue to do. That actually answers also your third part of it. That's why we have built upon that opportunity by then relaunching easyJet Holidays as an example, because it is actually sitting there as a massive opportunity that is waiting for us to capture on the network that we already have. If you would start a holiday company today or a tour operator company in the world today, one of the biggest challenges you would have would actually how are you going to get access to the lift?
Well, that lift and that capacity is already there by what we're already doing. On the business side as well, we've seen actually that the share of business travel has increased. In terms of the share proportion, we actually reached a record high here. That's down to really focus once again on the primary airports and on the cities. We do know and we can see that leisure travel is going to recover probably one to two year earlier than the business travel, and given also then the consequences of the restrictions that is there now is about to be unwinded. We don't think that there's a conflict at all in that. The Holidays is building on the leisure positions that we already have, and we're the strongest in Europe on as well.
We also have the city-to-city business traffic, which has proven to be successful, which is really about making sure we get the best timetables, which we have in the markets which we're operating. Sophie?
Yeah, sure. If I pick up your point specifically, Daniel, around pricing and where we expect the dynamics to be going forward, I think there's three external factors that are going to play a real part in that. One is market capacity. Interestingly, we've certainly got first-mover advantage on a number of those points. If I take a real example, when we added the capacity to Portugal, we added that capacity of the extra 100,000 seats within 24 hours and in the build-up to the expected government announcement. We saw a real spike in sales from 5:00 P.M. on the 7th of May, and so that gave us a real first-mover advantage. We then saw Ryanair and others adding capacity on the Sunday and the Monday, and that obviously had a yield impact.
We'd already then really capitalized on that first spike in demand because we were ready and had that first-mover advantage. I think the second factor will be very much around government restrictions, and obviously we're very much in their hands in terms of the decisions that they're making. Again, an example of that where we can take advantage is the fact we've got the destination basis. We've actually been able to move capacity from the U.K. The team did it yesterday, moved some capacity from the U.K. into Palma and actually redirected that into Berlin, Palma for the middle of June. We can act really dynamically to help see where that demand is and respond really quickly. I think the third factor that will have an impact on yield, but a positive impact is that pent-up demand.
We know the demand is there, and as soon as we put that capacity in, and as soon as the government makes the announcement, we do see that spike in demand. I think from the perspective of pricing and where that's going to go going forward, I think that agility, that ability to be able to respond really quickly with network capacity decisions is where we can get that yield advantage over and above anyone else in the market.
Yeah. On also the CORSIA and the ETS, we're still waiting for confirmation in terms of the introduction of the CORSIA, which is an offsetting scheme, as you know. In terms of the ETS and the carbon credits, that has now been decided that it's going to be rephased into switching of the year to determine the credits we're going to have in place, and that's just something that we're looking now to have confirmation on as we go forward. I'm engaging as part of being chairman now also for the A4E to make sure that when the CORSIA is introduced, which we are supportive of, that it makes sense that that is being put in the context also of the cap and trade system of the ETS.
Also the other variants of the discussion that exists now around what restrictions and regulatory framework will be in place, when it comes to sustainability taxes and environmental taxes. You would be aware about the referendum that exists now in Switzerland, as an example, to introduce a significant tax. One of the major concerns I have about this, that there needs to be a common, holistic, cohesive approach really across Europe, where that regulatory framework deals with everything at once. We don't end up double counting all the things and the taxes we're paying, and also that the revenue from these taxes go into things that actually is there to help transition this industry. A big part of this is not only about the fact will the technology work or not before we get onto the zero-emissions aircraft, but actually how do you transition there?
I spend a lot of time in the focus to make sure that there are those tools in place to make that happen, and it's going to be increasingly important going forward.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Mark Simpson of Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning. A couple of questions. First off, just on the unit cost side, historically and before the current team was in place, there were often comments about we're saving GBP 800 million from cost this year, but it never fed through to unit cost. I'm just wondering how you see your cost program in terms of what unit cost per seat will look like, let's say, in comparison to the average of just over GBP 42 ex fuel that we saw in the three years FY 2017 to FY 2019. Are we talking about an actual unit cost reduction, or are we still in the historical world of nominal reductions that don't actually get realized in the bottom line? I think there's a sea change which is happening, and I'm hoping that we're actually seeing real cost savings being delivered. That's the first key question. Second, capacity allocation.
You talked about moving to higher yields. If you look at the loaded schedules currently out to October, I can understand why capacity to Greece is up 6% on that June, October period against 2019, why Portugal is close too. Obviously, Germany is the massive outlier in terms of a capacity reduction. I wonder if you could take us through what your thinking is for that market going forward because it looks as though that is a structural change in terms of the current loader schedules. Finally, if you could give me a third question on the net debt side, now standing at GBP 2 billion, obviously balance sheet ratio is stretched. What's your kind of parameters in terms of the ratios you are comfortable with in terms of managing the balance sheet?
Right. Kenton, do you want to start?
Yeah, I'll start with the cost savings. Thank you, Mark. Yes, this is a very extensive cost program that has been undertaken. It has delivered savings in H1, and we are on target to deliver savings of about half a billion by the end of the year. And a good portion of these, almost half, will be sustainable. If you look at crew, right-sizing the crew establishment and getting seasonal and part-time contracts in makes a sustainable saving. Looking at the pay and conditions, there are sustainable savings there. When you look at the improved crewing ratios, it's going to be achieved right across the network, that delivers sustainable savings. The same with engineering maintenance.
Contracts have been struck on all the heavy maintenance providers and with insourcing of line maintenance and light maintenance in London Gatwick, in Berlin, in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, that will give us definitive savings moving forward. We've also extended the low-cost GE deal. Likewise, with ground handling, where a lot of contracts have been resigned. These are concrete savings. When your question is how do they pertain to, say, a 2019 year, one of the things we've then got to factor is the headwinds we've talked about. We know that there'll be increased navigation costs. We just don't know the full quantum of that. There's a desire from Eurocontrol to recover some of the lost fees during the pandemic. We know we have increased financing costs from the growth debt and of course, ownership from the sale of leaseback program.
On top of that, as Johan alluded to, we have some taxation headwinds, for instance, in Switzerland, where there's currently a referendum to see if there should be a new departure tax installed. These genuine sustainable headwinds will help offset those increased costs. I think the most important thing is it's not a one-time program. This is now a sustainable program. What Peter and I will do is constantly challenge every line of expenditure. We're fully aware that with our margins, every time we spend GBP 20, that's equivalent to five people flying. Every GBP 0.05 operation, it can be a GBP 5 million saving. Every line is challenged. We're taking a zero-based approach to our costs, so we'll keep challenging that. Your question on net debt, the net debt level is GBP 2 billion, and it will form part of the capital structure review I talked about.
I will get back to you when that's complete.
If I pick up the point around Germany and German capacity, we will still maintain our number one position within Berlin, even with the capacity reductions that we have made. The majority of the capacity reductions that came out are on German domestics because those were the least profitable of our routes, and this is about disciplined capacity allocation. We have used a lot of the destination bases of Málaga , Palma, and Faro to actually be able to redirect and serve some of that increased demand. We have added 120,000 seats into Berlin using some of the destination-based capacity. We are also launching new routes as well. We have launched Santorini and Mykonos this summer, for example, for Berlin as well.
As I mentioned earlier, we've already made the decision just yesterday to switch more of that capacity from the U.K. into Berlin from Palma because we have that flexibility to switch. Berlin very much continues to be one of our biggest network points. We will maintain that number one position, and we will continue to serve it predominantly with that leisure and city-to-city capacity allocation rather than domestics, which is what made up the majority of the capacity that we removed from the market.
That is great. Very comprehensive. Thanks for those answers.
Our next question will come from Stephen Furlong of Davy. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Can you talk about cash burn? I mean, obviously, it's a little bit better in the quarter that passed. Can you talk about what is needed to go cash positive in terms of what capacity, and then how long would it stay cash positive? As you know, normally it's a seasonal business, and in the industry, it tends to go cash negative again in the winter period. Presumably peak summer bookings or capacity would have to go above a certain threshold. Back to the capital structure. Assuming you have constant discussions with the rating agencies, are they comfortable with the investment grade credit rating? You're going to look at things like liquidity per seat or 100 seats, which you have as a measure at the moment as well. Exactly, a decent liquidity.
Again, it's just something on the capital structure. Thanks again for that.
Thank you very much for the question. On cash burn, the guidance that was given at Q1 was around the fixed cost plus capital expenditure cash burn that we have in the business, managing that at around the GBP 40 million per week mark. Through Q1, that was GBP 39 million a week, through Q2, that was down to GBP 38 million per week. We keep a strong focus on that line. You're right, ordinarily, you would now expect an airline to move to cash positive, that's something we're looking at as we move into June. Obviously, what does that depend on? It depends on your forward booking profile and money coming in, that is where we have some uncertainty.
We've guided to 15% of capacities for Q3, and we're not guiding beyond that because of the short-term nature of bookings and the lack of visibility. Capital structure. Yes, we'll be looking at the key financial policies are obviously around hedging and around liquidity. The liquidity policy of 2.6 per 100 seats has served us well, but we'll be having a close look at that. When we're talking to the rating agencies, and we stay in touch with both rating agencies clearly, they have their own metrics, and they're understood. I think during this crisis, they've also been focused on the liquidity that a company has, and that's why we've been very focused, amongst other reasons, on the liquidity. As we stand today, we have GBP 2.9 billion of liquidity. Also on the business model, it's very important.
Our business model is short-haul focused, it's leisure focused, and therefore, it will be at the front of the recovery when the recovery happens. We're starting to see that happening across Europe, and we're very pleased that Europe is opening up. We just are very keen to see a number of countries appear on the green list to prove it's safe to travel. The other thing that clearly is a focus for the rating agency is the profile of your debt. A lot of what's been achieved with the recent debt, the UKEF, is a five-year tenor. The last Eurobond of EUR 1.2 billion was a seven-year tenor, and that's allowed us to repay all our short-term debt.
Now we have the CCFF GBP 300 million due in November, and then after that, apart from ongoing lease liabilities, we don't have another maturity until FY 2023, and that's obviously a key focus.
Just to add to the first part of the question.
Okay, that's great.
Yeah, just to add to the first part of the question, because coming back to that, really if you take a step back on the booking pattern. We've seen that the booking pattern is very, very short because people are looking now for what change is going to be into the amount of the travel restrictions. We're very pleased now when Europe is opening up. We can see that we have a certain book is in there. Clearly, it would not be unrealistic to think also that because of the pent-up that is increasing, that you would see also that the traditional summer surge that we have with the demand and capacities like in August, September will continue into October and also then into the first part of November. Because we know there's such a huge pent-up demand on that.
I think that still comes back really to the restrictions that are in place and now starting to be unwound.
Okay. Thanks, Kenton. Thank you, Johan. Appreciate it.
Our next question will come from Andrew Lobbenberg of HSBC. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi there, Kenton. Welcome on board. Can I ask just very straightforwardly, you're talking about 15% capacity for the third quarter. Can you just describe how that develops month by month through the quarter, just so we get a sense of the run rate? Johan, you've pushed your Yale study very hard and eloquently, but do you think it's getting any traction with government? Is there anything else you can do? Just a question, I guess, to Sophie, which is speaking about the ability to move assets around Europe. To what extent is that restricted by the split between easyJet UK and easyJet Europe, the G-flagged aircraft aircraft and the Austrian flagged aircraft? Are you constrained in or does that delay your ability to move planes around? Thanks.
Yeah, on the study on Yale, thanks for bringing that up because I don't know to what extent it is known what it actually is and what it's been doing. In December, we noticed that there was very little intelligence and really proper analysis done on what restrictions has impact on hospitalization rates, because that is primarily one of the key focus areas for governments across Europe at different level of vaccinations. Yale and the leading epidemiologist there had done some work on actually how those restrictions were most effective for people going out to all platforms. They'd done a study on that.
We asked them to look that given that the data that is available now around Europe when it comes to the prevalence, the infection rates, the level of the vaccination, and the variants of concerns, what impact will that have if you started to travel? What that study then showed, and the study, which is now due to be peer reviewed very shortly, and it's clearly, and I don't think anybody disputed that, this is the most in-depth study that's been done on this whole point. That showed that by the date that it was available for middle of April, that you could actually open up much of Europe at that point in time without having any significant impact on the hospitalization. When we got that, we shared this with the government, here in the U.K., but also across the whole of Europe.
I think it's been extremely welcome as contributing documents and analysis for people in the governments to also add that together with their own analysis. Some have used it more progressively than others. It's fair to say that it's definitely played a part. One of the concerns that I have is that, and I said this quite an early stage, the difficulty I have with the approach here from the U.K. government is that if restrictions are put in place where you actually don't know what effect it has on the hospitalization rate, when do you know when you're going to remove them? I think that one of the criteria, and I give that as an example that has been used in the U.K., is to say it looks also at the vaccination rate at other destinations. That is not a key metric.
The key metric is the vaccination rate here in this country, being the destination country, the prevalence of the infections in the origin country, and also the variants of concern. We are using this, and it's not being disputed by anybody that nobody doesn't believe it. I think it's a matter of what risk level different governments are taking in terms of reopening up the travel. That's why I think it's been disappointing and frustrating to see that when the U.K. government introduced the risk-based framework, which we believe is, by the way, is the right approach. They also put in measures in there and restrictions in there that didn't have an impact on the hospitalization rate. It's been unclear still to this date on what those restrictions will actually do.
This leads us now to the point where you're seeing that Europe now is opening up at scale. Many countries here you can travel from unrestricted, if you're vaccinated, and even if you don't are vaccinated, restrictions are being unwinded. U.K. now is not only risks to fall behind, it is behind on this. I think that the European Parliament, as an example, they have now put forward a proposal, as you know, to pay for all the testing, the extensive PCR testing, as an example. We asked the government here in the U.K. to also look at that. It's important to remember from easyJet perspective that we have about 50% of what we do is actually outside the U.K.
We will take those opportunities, but we continue, and everyone, for myself and easyJet, we are willing and we are there to support and help and contribute in a constructive way. When there are measures being introduced that we don't understand, that it's not supported by data, it's not supported by the scientific analysis that is out there, it has to be questioned. What I particularly like to make a note on is that when I think the government also take a view to say, "Well, this is what the public like to see, and this is what the public wants to see in terms of protecting the borders." Of course, we all want to protect ourselves from infections coming in. The difference is, of course, that it has to be managed with a risk level in mind.
The U.K. government is not adopting a zero-risk policy because otherwise, you wouldn't open up the domestic economy in this way. We are continuing to engage with them, and we are continuing to ask also what we can do to further support this. I think that data shows, and what we're now seeing the other governments are doing outside the U.K., is moving in that direction that traveling is now opening up. We look forward to contribute constructively into that process. I spoke so long about that I actually forgot what other questions there was there.
I've got a question.
Sorry, Andrew.
There was a question around the re-registering of assets. Excuse me, sorry. We've got really good experience of the 113 aircraft that we re-registered already, so we can do it relatively quickly. Thank you, Kenton. That's a way for us to be able to continue to do that if we need to. Having said that, what we can also do is we can also reallocate aircraft on our destination bases. For example, the example I've already given earlier around Palma, where we were able to redirect capacity that was directed into the U.K. is now being redirected to fly within Europe. That gives us much more flexibility than we've ever had before in terms of being able to move
Across the network without necessarily having to re-register aircraft specifically. As I say, we've got great experience having re-registered 113 aircraft in a relatively short space of time, that we can do that relatively quickly. I think the other point to pick up is, given our network and the strength of our network, we can really rely on the domestics as well at the moment. We're launching seven new domestics in the U.K. this year, six in France, seven in Italy. We can really flex within markets as well, that we've got that agility to flex according to customer demand. Having that combination of domestic city to city and leisure is really playing in our favor right now. Yes, we can re-register, yes, we can do it very quickly. We've got a lot of experience doing it.
Those destination bases and the domestic capacity is really serving us well at the moment, giving us that agility without needing to re-register in the short term.
Right. Thank you very much for that, Sophie.
Sorry, Andrew?
The other one very quickly is what's the run rate of capacity in June? You've got 15% for the June quarter. What's the run rate capacity in June?
We haven't split that 15% in the quarter, we're clearly looking forward to increase throughout June, and then it very much depends on what's going to happen in the U.K. on the green listing announcing at the beginning of June. Clearly, we are seeing now a surge in bookings across the European network. They're still very much depending on kind of the daily news flow on what's going to happen. Around 15% is what we're giving out for the quarter as a whole. With that, I'm now being told-
Thank you.
Sorry?
Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. I'm now being told in no uncertain terms that I have to finish off this call. I do apologize also for the technical disruption with here. We'll definitely make sure we pick up if there are further questions with each and every one of yourself. We're here for yourself. Looking forward to catching up with you soon again. Thank you all very much for joining in. Thank you.