He wanted to be a trombone player, but ended up the CEO of a major airline

• Johan Lundgren wanted to be a musician but turned to the travel industry when that didn’t pan out.
• He’s been CEO of European airline easyJet for the past six years.
• Lundgren says he never planned his career and has focused more on the journey than the destination.

In a parallel universe, Johan Lundgren would have become a professional musician and never ended up as CEO of one of the world’s biggest airlines.

The Swede started playing the trombone at the age of 11 and was good enough to land scholarships that took him to Britain and the US. (His time in London included a bit of busking on the Underground: “At Christmas, you could make quite a lot of money.”)

However, Lundgren wasn’t quite good enough to get into the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He was “so disappointed,” but the setback forced him to think about what he wanted to do instead. “I like people, and I like travel,” Lundgren tells Business Insider in a faint Swedish accent during an interview in central London.

He started working as a tour guide on a cruise ship between the Swedish capital and what was then called Leningrad in Russia. The job came about partly because he had some knowledge of Russian history and culture from playing Russian music: “Everything you go through in life — it is a journey. The less you focus on the destination and the more you focus on today and the journey you’re on, you can get immense benefits from that.”

Lundgren progressed to a small company that organized business travel to the Soviet Union during the period of the 1990s when the Soviet Union opened up after Communism failed. After that he became a tour operator owned by the airline SAS as sales director.

After that, he became CEO at the age of 29, overseeing about 1,500 staff. “I never planned my career as such — one thing led to another … if you have some luck and great people around you — then things will look after themselves,” he says.

He spent many years at TUI, one of Europe’s biggest travel companies, rising to deputy CEO by the time he left in 2015. The Swede returned to his musical roots by opening a recording studio on the Spanish island of Majorca in the Mediterranean.

Inevitably, the headhunters kept calling. One asked Lundgren what company he might like to run. “I said ‘easyJet,’ without really thinking much about it,” he recalls.

If you’ve ever traveled in Europe, chances are you’ve flown easyJet – the airline has about 1,000 routes in 35 countries, and operates from 155 airports. It carried 69 million people last year.

Southwest Airlines carried 126 million passengers last year in comparison, though both trail some distance behind the Irish bargain-basement carrier Ryanair, which had 160 million passengers.

‘Extraordinary privilege’

So why easyJet? Lundgren says he was a fan of regular user of the airline, founded in 1995. It’s cheaper than the “legacy” carriers such as British Airways, but still operates from primary airports such as London Gatwick or Charles de Gaulle in Paris (unlike Ryanair, once voted the world’s worst short-haul airline.)

There wasn’t a vacancy at the time, but when the CEO left a few months later, Lundgren threw his hat in the ring — and got the job. It’s almost six years to the day that he took up the role, and he’s either a good actor, or genuinely loves his work.

“It’s an extraordinary privilege to do this … even on a bad day. It’s something that matters to millions and millions of people. I’ve been sitting at dinners with Nobel Prize winners, and we end up talking about the airline industry and their latest travel and the company. People really care about this.”

Lundgren, 57, took home almost £3 million, or $3.76 million, last year, up from $1 million in 2021 when he didn’t get a bonus, per the company’s annual report. (Southwest CEO Bob Jordan was paid $5.3 million in 2022, though he may miss out on a bonus this year given its meltdown last holiday season.)

Data-driven

I ask Lundgren if the experience of flying, which many think is becoming more of a hassle, can improve. He insists “it really is a good experience” most of the time, bar some peak periods in the summer when things don’t always go to plan. That’s often due to factors outside the airline’s control, such as air traffic control issues, Lundgren says. “We fly 275,000 people a day, and the overwhelming majority have a smooth airport experience.”

Technology and AI are playing a big part in helping easyJet to reduce disruption and delays, he says.

The usual turnaround time of 35 minutes for a plane is doable on a good day, but factors such as a reduction in available airspace due to the Ukraine war have made delays more likely, Lundgren explains.

Easyjet is using AI to predict where the pressure points will be and the likely effect on schedules. That data helps determine where its 15 or so spare planes should best be based, and how many crew each base needs — and even identity parts that need replacing before they fail.

The airline’s been “data-driven” for some time, and now generative AI can help cut costs and increase efficiency by optimizing the amount of fuel needed for each flight, for example. “Every little small thing makes a massive difference. Data is just going to be a gamechanger,” Lundgren says.

EasyJet also uses data for dynamic pricing, not just on fares but ancillary charges like checked bags, too.

It’s the UK’s biggest airline and is first or second in many other markets too. Lundgren says focusing on big airports was a “genius” move by the founder and former CEO Stelios Stelios Haji-Ioannou. He and his family retain a significant stake in the company.

Testing ideas

EasyJet’s huge number of takeoff and landing slots at Europe’s most popular airports will only get more valuable, the CEO said. He says the company can also increase passenger numbers without adding more flights by replacing Airbus A319 planes with A320s and A321s that seat more people as they are delivered.

I also wonder if he’s faced any cultural differences working outside his native Sweden over the years. Lundgren recounts that after taking up a role in Canada in the late 1990s, he would make suggestions and find that “everybody agreed with me” every time. He was more used to “just testing ideas” rather than issuing instructions.

He’s lived in the UK for many years with his wife, but their two children, born in Canada, returned there to study and remain in Toronto. That gives Lundgren a reason to cross the Atlantic – but he can’t fly easyJet, and says that’s not likely to change given the difficulty low-cost airlines face making money on long-haul routes.

Other airline bosses, notably Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, are very much of the belief that all publicity is good publicity.

Lundgren keeps a lower profile and prefers to devote his energy to doing his best for easyJet customers, its 15,000 staff, and shareholders. That may sound a bit corny, but I get the feeling he absolutely believes it. As he puts it: “I don’t have a lot of need for external appreciation.”

So while he’s happy not to blow his own trumpet, unlike O’Leary, leaving the trombone behind turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise for Lundgren.