EasyJet passenger numbers up despite impact of strikes
EasyJet managed to grow passenger numbers by 3.8% in April, despite the impact of French air traffic control strikes.
The airline said it had to cancel 602 flights because of the strikes, compared to the cancellation of 48 in April 2014.
It carried just over 6 million passengers during the month, with a 1 percentage point increase in load factor to 90.8%.
Year-on-year, passenger numbers have grown 6.2% to 66.2 million, while load factors are up 1.3 percentage points to 91%.
Meanwhile, Wizz Air reported a 21% rise in April passengers to more than 1.7 million, with load factors up 1.7 percentage points to 86.2%.
Despite the impact of pilot strikes in Scandinavia, Norwegian’s April passenger numbers jumped 7% to 2.1 million and load factor was up by 2.6 percentage points 82.4%.
Capacity rose by 11% with the delivery of a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, bringing the airline’s long haul fleet up to eight aircraft.
But Aer Lingus passenger numbers fell by 5.2% year-on-year to 823,000, largely due to a drop in short-haul figures.
Its overall load factor increased by 2.4 percentage points to 78.2%.
Passenger numbers for Aer Lingus Regional flights dropped 10.7% to 100,000.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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