In the face of operational breakdown, reputational damage, and internal fragmentation, easyJet’s leadership team recognised the need for decisive change. What followed was a multi-year transformation that began with rapid stabilisation and evolved into deep leadership alignment. This work rebuilt trust, restored performance, and repositioned the airline as a market leader.
The Challenge
By 2010, easyJet was in crisis.
Operational reliability had collapsed, with on-time performance falling as low as 48%. Cost-cutting decisions had eroded resilience, leaving insufficient standby aircraft and crew. Customers were frustrated by delays, cancellations, and unclear pricing. Internally, morale had deteriorated, with frontline staff facing daily conflict and senior leaders operating in silos rather than as a cohesive team.
At the same time, external pressures intensified the situation.
When Carolyn McCall stepped in as CEO, the mandate was clear. Stabilise the operation, rebuild trust, and transform the leadership team to enable long-term success.
The Approach
The easyJet transformation was delivered through a tightly sequenced programme combining operational stabilisation and leadership alignment. It began by restoring reliability through rebuilding crew and aircraft resilience, reintroducing operational buffers, and embedding a daily cadence focused on on-time performance as the core measure of success. At the same time, the Airline Management Board worked with Complete to shift from siloed leadership to a unified decision-making team, using structured facilitation, governance redesign, and integrative decision-making to build trust, alignment, and speed of execution.
Once stability was restored, the focus moved to addressing key sources of instability and rebuilding confidence across the organisation. With this foundation in place, attention shifted to customer experience, using insight and frontline feedback to identify causes for dissatisfaction.
A word from the client on their organisational transformation…
Carolyn McCall, previous CEO of easyJet:
“The results mattered, of course – but what mattered more was building a team and a culture that could keep delivering, even when things got difficult. That’s what lasts.”
The Legacy
By 2018, easyJet had been transformed from a business on the brink of operational failure into one of Europe’s most reliable short-haul airlines. What had once been a culture defined by cost-cutting, internal friction and frontline strain became a more disciplined and aligned organisation.
Under Carolyn McCall, the executive team evolved from a group of “battling experts” into a cohesive leadership team with shared accountability for performance, customers and long-term value. Decisions were faster, collaboration was stronger, and execution was more consistent.