Coronavirus: Easyjet to halt 90 per cent of flights from Tuesday

Scotland’s biggest airline will ground most of its fleet within days, it announced today.

Easyjet is Scotland's biggest airline by passengers.

The move follows a similar decision by rivals Ryanair, which expects to end almost all flying by then.

Easyjet said it expected its rescue flights to bring passengers back to the UK would be completed by Monday.

It urged customers abroad to rebook onto the flights before then.

Easyjet flies from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness.

The airline then plans to operate a “minimal schedule of essential services on some routes”.

These will comprise “a maximum of 10 per cent of our usual capacity during this time of year and mainly routes to, from and within the UK”.

Passengers with reservations can change them without charge to another date.

Easyjet chief executive Johan Lundgren said: “These are unprecedented times for the airline industry.

“We know how important it is for customers to get home and so are continuing to operate rescue flights over the coming days to repatriate them.

“Significantly reducing our flying programme is the right thing to do when many countries have issued advice to their citizens not to travel unless it is essential.

“The aircraft groundings will also remove significant levels of variable costs at a time when this remains crucial.”