easyJet (U2) shareholders approved the £7.15-per-share cash takeover by Apollo-backed Eagle Bidco Ltd on November 11, 2026, clearing both shareholder votes and leaving court sanction and regulatory approvals as the remaining steps before a completion that easyJet expects before the end of the first quarter of 2027.

In a regulatory announcement titled “Result of Meeting,” published on November 11, 2026, easyJet said the scheme of arrangement won 97.07% of the shares voted at the Court Meeting and 96.67% of the votes cast at the General Meeting. The deal, whose terms the boards agreed on August 6, 2026, values easyJet’s entire issued and to be issued share capital at approximately £5.7 billion, according to the original offer announcement.

How the votes were counted

The Court Meeting required a majority in number of the scheme shareholders voting, representing 75% or more in value of the shares voted. According to the announcement, 289 shareholders (83.29% by number) voted in favour and 58 (16.71%) voted against, with 13 shareholders splitting their votes and counted on both sides. In all, 334 shareholders voted 295,889,610 shares, or 39.03% of the eligible share capital. The General Meeting resolution, which also amends easyJet’s articles, needed at least 75% of the votes cast. It received 247,835,560 votes in favour out of 256,364,323, with 387,424 votes withheld.

European ownership rules shaped the count. easyJet said EU persons held 35.07% of its shares at the time of the General Meeting, and it suspended the voting rights of 233,921,894 “Affected Shares” held by non-EU persons; the poll results reflect that suspension. The company had 758,010,025 shares in issue at the Voting Record Time of 6.30 p.m. on November 9, 2026, and held none in treasury.

easyJet said the shareholder conditions, numbered 2(a) and 2(b), are now satisfied. The resolution will be filed with the Financial Conduct Authority and made available on the National Storage Mechanism.

What still has to happen

The scheme still needs the Court’s sanction and the other conditions set out when the deal was announced on August 6, 2026. That announcement listed approvals or confirmations of non-objection from the regulators of easyJet’s aviation licences, with no written notice of intent to suspend or revoke a licence; merger control approvals in Austria, Egypt, Germany and the UK; and foreign direct investment approvals in Austria, France, Italy, Malta, Spain and the UK.

The timetable is set against the date of the Sanction Hearing, which easyJet expects before the end of the first calendar quarter of 2027. The last day of dealings in easyJet shares would be one business day after the hearing, the scheme would become effective two business days after it, and the listing would be cancelled by 8.00 a.m. three business days after it. Cash consideration is due within 14 calendar days of the effective date. The Long Stop Date is 11.59 p.m. on August 6, 2027.

How the Apollo offer is structured

AirPro News reported on the £5.7 billion Apollo agreement in August. Eagle Bidco is indirectly owned by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Capital Management, L.P. The August 6 announcement put the £7.15 price at a premium of approximately 81% to easyJet’s closing price of £3.94 on the Unaffected Date, as the announcement defines it.

Shareholders could instead choose an Alternative Offer of unlisted Rollover Shares in a Bidco parent company, one for each easyJet share, subject to a cap of 49.9% of Topco’s issued share capital and to scaling back. The Haji-Ioannou Family Concert Party gave irrevocable undertakings to vote in favour and to elect for the Alternative Offer over 116,061,871 easyJet shares, about 15.31% of the total.

The ownership plan is built around airline ownership and control rules. After completion, the August announcement said, Topco is expected to be owned 45.1% to 49.9% by Rollover Shareholders, up to 5% by an EU Trust and the balance, up to 49.9%, by the Apollo funds, with governing documents that include provisions to keep the structure compliant.

The easyJet directors, advised by Evercore, unanimously recommended that shareholders vote for the scheme and called the cash offer fair and reasonable. They made no recommendation on the Alternative Offer, saying they could not determine whether its terms were fair and reasonable. The scheme document was published on October 15, 2026.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL) will cut almost another 15% of its positions, replace planned Airbus A320s with Embraer E195-E2s and phase out its Boeing 737s and Embraer E190s as it seeks an annual earnings improvement of €1 billion, bringing its total improvement target to €1.4 billion. The airline announced the plan on November 5, 2026, the same day KLM Group published its third-quarter results.

KLM said its future scenarios showed that delaying decisions would further limit its options. Third-quarter operating profit rose €106 million to €458 million, yet CFO Bas Brouns said the margin must rise to more than 8%. “Fuel prices continue to put pressure on our results, our cost base remains too high,” said Marjan Rintel, President and CEO of KLM, who added that operations are too vulnerable for the airline to keep investing and competing effectively.

What changes in the European fleet

According to KLM’s press release, the Airbus A321neo stays in the fleet, while Embraer E195-E2 aircraft will replace the A320s it had planned. KLM Cityhopper will play a larger role, and the Boeing 737 and Embraer E190 will be phased out over the coming years. KLM said it will operate a simplified, modernized fleet of 185 Airbus, Boeing and Embraer aircraft and focus capacity on the routes that best support passenger connectivity and its nonstop network of 160 destinations from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS).

The scale of the change shows in the AirPro Atlas. Since October 9, 2026, the Atlas has recorded 28 Boeing 737-800s, six 737-700s and five 737-900s flying under KLM, and 21 Embraer E190s and 24 E195-E2s flying under KLM Cityhopper. These are aircraft seen flying in that period, not a registered fleet count.

For maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), the Engineering & Maintenance division will focus on the future fleet, speed up the maintenance phaseout for retiring aircraft types, schedule work during existing ground time and improve engine and component shop productivity. Management of Engine Services and Component Services will be aligned more closely with Air France-KLM.

Where the positions go

KLM said about 5,000 positions will be reorganized. Work for 1,250 KLM Catering Services positions has been carried out with gategroup since spring; Air France-KLM’s second-quarter report states that KLM and gategroup completed the acquisition of KLM Catering Services on July 1, 2026, with gategroup holding 75% and KLM 25%, and that the business will keep providing KLM’s catering for 20 years.

About 800 Ground Services positions will move to external providers, who will take over below-the-wing activities at KLM Cityhopper and baggage handling in the East Hall. A further 2,000 positions, including 1,500 at customer contact center Cygnific, will transfer to Air France-KLM, and productivity improvements will eliminate about 1,000 more. KLM said it aims to limit job losses through natural attrition, voluntary arrangements and internal transfers.

KLM Cargo will consolidate all handling in one Schiphol warehouse ahead of a new cargo terminal due in 2035, absorbing growth through simpler processes, automation and redeployment, without new hires. KLM also wants new collective labor agreements, simpler and more competitive employment terms and a structural productivity increase of at least 8% by 2028, with very moderate wage growth.

“It’s painful to transfer activities that have traditionally been part of our company,” Rintel said. She added that inaction would have worse consequences for jobs and national connectivity.

Why KLM says the earlier savings were not enough

KLM said it has already achieved structural improvements of more than €750 million and has largely resolved its shortage of pilots and maintenance staff. Its third-quarter release puts the gains from the Back on Track program at €750 million to date. Over the first nine months of 2026, revenue rose more than 9% to €10.9 billion and operating profit reached €526 million, compared with €328 million a year earlier, on capacity growth of 4.3%.

Air France-KLM’s second-quarter report gives KLM’s margins for earlier periods. It shows KLM with an adjusted operating result of €176 million and an operating margin of 4.5% for the second quarter of 2026, and a margin of 1.0% for the first half. KLM’s aircraft fuel costs, excluding the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), rose 48.8% in the second quarter.

“The third quarter is traditionally our strongest,” Brouns said. He said that even under highly favorable market conditions, “our profit margin remains too low. We need to increase it to more than 8%” to secure the airline’s financial health. In the restructuring release, he said: “We need to make a major leap forward.”

AirPro News analysis

The figures KLM put side by side explain the size of the plan: a €458 million operating profit in the quarter Brouns calls the strongest of the year, against a second-quarter margin of 4.5% and a target above 8%. For lessors and MRO shops, the practical changes sit in the fleet section: Embraer E195-E2s in place of the planned A320s, a bigger operation at KLM Cityhopper and a faster maintenance phaseout for the 737 and E190.

What KLM keeps investing in

KLM said it will keep investing in its network and customer experience, including free high-speed Wi-Fi on intercontinental flights, expanded meal options on European routes and digitalization and AI for booking and efficiency. In a release dated October 30, 2026, on the first A350-900 passenger flight, KL0691 from Schiphol to Toronto, KLM called the arrival of its first A350-900 an important step in its fleet renewal program.

Within the group, certain activities will be performed by external partners, reorganized or consolidated within Air France-KLM, and KLM expects the proposed expansion to include SAS, under review by the European Commission, to create collaboration and economies of scale. Rintel said further changes to the organization, employment conditions, productivity and staffing may still be necessary, and that KLM will hold open dialogue with employee representatives, unions and partners.

The Lufthansa Group and the Portuguese government signed an agreement at Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon on November 3, 2026, for Lufthansa to acquire an initial 44.9 percent minority stake in TAP Air Portugal for 1.025 billion euros. The transaction still needs approval from the relevant authorities, in particular the European Commission, before it can be completed.

In a press release dated November 3, 2026, the Lufthansa Group called the signing a decisive milestone in TAP’s privatization. The release also puts a figure on the commercial case: Lufthansa estimates the synergies at up to 450 million euros and says a minority stake already allows it to realize most of them.

What the agreement covers

According to the Lufthansa Group, the purchase price for the initial 44.9 percent stake is financed entirely from available liquidity. The stake could rise to up to 49.9 percent through the possible acquisition of shares initially offered to TAP employees. Including a ticking fee, the total purchase price could reach up to 1.2 billion euros.

Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, described the signing in the release:

“Today’s signing is an excellent signal that extends far into our shared future with TAP Air Portugal.”

Spohr said the two networks complement each other and that the partnership opens growth opportunities in Portugal, South America and Brazil, with the aim of developing Lisbon into a Lufthansa Group hub. He also thanked the Portuguese government for its privatization process.

Lisbon as the group’s seventh hub

Lufthansa said its growth plans center on expanding TAP’s network, especially the links between Portugal and Brazil, Portuguese-speaking Africa and North America. Lisbon would become the seventh hub of the Lufthansa Group, and Porto, the Azores, Madeira and the Algarve are also part of the strategy.

The release gives the market share at stake. Lufthansa says its current share of traffic between Europe and Latin America is about nine percent, and that the calculated combined share with TAP would be about 20 percent.

TAP Air Portugal (TP), founded in 1945, is a Star Alliance member, according to its AirPro Atlas profile. The Atlas lists a single runway at Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS), runway 02/20, at 12,500 feet. Among the three pillars that Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Miguel Pinto Luz set out for the privatization is an aviation strategy that includes the development of the new Lisbon airport and added airport capacity.

From bid to signing

The signing follows a privatization process that the government says involved two and a half years of preparation. On April 23, 2026, the Council of Ministers invited Air France-KLM and Lufthansa to submit binding offers in the final phase of the privatization. The government said at the time that it intended to sell up to 49.9 percent of TAP’s share capital: 44.9 percent to an investor and up to 5 percent reserved for workers.

The Lufthansa Group submitted its bid to Parpública, the Portuguese state-owned investment company, on July 29, 2026. In a release dated October 14, 2026, Lufthansa welcomed the government’s decision to pick its offer, which AirPro News covered as Portugal’s choice of the Lufthansa bid. In that release, Lufthansa said it expected to sign the acquisition agreements shortly.

The government’s own summary of the decision, dated October 15, 2026, said the operation brings in 1,201 million euros and that the Portuguese State keeps a majority stake of 50.1 percent in TAP. It said Lufthansa’s financial proposal was 16 percent higher than the competing proposal and carried less uncertainty, while the technical proposals and contractual conditions were considered equivalent. The government also said it planned to sign the first-phase documents by the end of 2026.

Fleet and maintenance commitments

The government’s summary lists the commitments in the Lufthansa proposal: TAP’s fleet growing to 117 aircraft by 2035 and 130 after that, with estimated additional investment of 3 to 4 billion euros; the possible transfer of up to eight Airbus A350-900s after 2030; modernisation of the Portugália fleet; and Porto’s Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport becoming a second operating base with eight long-haul aircraft. TAP keeps its brand, its headquarters in Portugal and the Lisbon hub, and remains in Star Alliance.

For maintenance, the government cites about 300 million euros of investment and 700 jobs at the Lufthansa Technik center in Santa Maria da Feira, near Porto. Lufthansa says ground was broken on the site in June and that it is expected to raise the group’s direct jobs in Portugal to more than 1,000 by 2030, from more than 500 professionals working for Lufthansa Group companies in the country. The group’s airlines currently offer 353 weekly flights to six destinations in Portugal, which Lufthansa says is a 75 percent increase compared with 2019.

What comes next

Lufthansa said the transaction will be completed once all required regulatory approvals are received. The government said in October that the regulatory procedures include the European Commission, through its Directorate-General for Competition, and Portugal’s National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC).

A second phase is also in view. The Lufthansa Group says it expressly welcomes the prospect of a full privatization of TAP and that a majority stake would offer further opportunities to accelerate TAP’s growth and competitiveness. According to the government, a possible second privatization phase, which could proceed by 2028, would include the acquisition of a majority of TAP’s capital, bringing in an additional 863 million euros and a share swap valued at 488 million euros, equal to 5 percent of the combined group. The government estimates that the operation, with share appreciation and future dividends up to 2040, could recover about 3.4 billion euros, against more than 3.2 billion euros of public investment in the airline.

AirPro News analysis

The two parties frame the same deal from different ends. Lufthansa’s case rests on network share: from about nine percent to about 20 percent of traffic between Europe and Latin America, with most of the estimated synergies available from a minority position. The government’s case rests on keeping 50.1 percent now while leaving room for a second phase by 2028 that would include a majority stake for Lufthansa and a share swap equal to 5 percent of the combined group.

For operators, lessors and MRO shops, we see the figures to watch in the fleet and maintenance plan: 117 aircraft by 2035, up to eight A350-900s after 2030, a Porto base with eight long-haul aircraft and the Santa Maria da Feira site. Each of those plans sits behind the regulatory approvals that both Lufthansa and the government list as conditions for completion.