Low-cost company Easyjet is working flat out to legally secure its EU flight license. That already cost the first British shareholders the right to vote.
The Brexit agreement provisionally came into force on January 1st of the new year. The United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union, nor is it part of the EU internal market or the customs union. This could be the undoing of some airlines. Because within the EU, only those who are more than 50 percent owned and controlled by EU residents are allowed to fly. That doesn't quite work out with Easyjet. The low-cost airline currently only belongs to 47,35 percent shareholders from the EU.
In order to exceed the 50 percent threshold, the airline could, in a next step, force shareholders to sell their papers to investors from the EU, like the news magazine Reuters writes. But not only Easyjet has to grapple with this problem. Ryanair, the British-Spanish aviation group IAG and the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz, which is listed in London, must also prevent them from losing their right to flights within the EU after Brexit.