EasyJet cuts winter losses
EasyJet almost halved its winter pre-tax losses to £61milllion from £112 million last year.
The airline said it had benefited from its competitors chopping their capacity and Easter falling early.
Its results for the first half of the year to March 31 had also been helped by improvements to its revenue management system and it made "significant improvements" in under-performing routes
Total revenue per seat rose 8.6% to £53.39 while costs per seat, excluding fuel, rose 3.4%, largely due to higher airport charges and higher weather-related disruption.
Average load factors increased by 1.7 percentage points to 88.6%. The airline added 3.3% more capacity during the period, during which it flew 30 million seats.
In the six month period, easyJet has returned £85 million to shareholders.
It told the City it was in the final stages of evaluating the next-generation aircraft for 2017 and beyond.
Chief executive Carolyn McCall said: "easyJet delivered a strong first half performance, demonstrating the Company’s structural advantage in the European short-haul market against both legacy and low cost competition, and a continuing resilience against a challenging European macro-economic environment.
"Whilst there is always the potential for unexpected events to impact short term financial performance, the outlook for the second half of the financial year combined with the strong reduction in first half losses means that easyJet expects to deliver improved returns and profitability for the year ending 30 September 2013."
To attract more buisness travellers, easyJet has launched a new fast-track security service for customers buying flex fares.
From this month it will be available at 27 airports – including Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh and Glasgow – amounting to 54% of the airline’s business network. Over the coming months, it will be progressively rolled out to more points, said easyjet.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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