Snow costs easyJet £18m
Severe winter weather in December cost easyJet £18 million, while strike action earlier in the quarter cost it £7 million.
The airline, which unveiled its interim results today, said despite the hit, it has managed to grow revenue in the period by 7.5% to £654 million and increase passenger numbers by 8.8% to 11.9 million.
Targeted expansion in Europe helped its performance, with 59% of its passengers now originating from outside the UK.
Seats flown increased by 7.7%, with a 20% growth in mainland Europe. Capacity in the UK, meanwhile, was level with the previous year.
Load factor rose by 0.9 percentage points to 86.7% and total revenue per seat flown was flat at £47.48 on a reported basis and grew by 0.3% on a constant currency basis.
Looking forward, chief executive Carolyn McCall said easyJet was working to recover the cost of the December weather disruption and strikes through additional cost savings and revenue opportunities.
But she warned that the price of fuel meant the first half year loss is expected to be between £140 million and £160 million, compared to the pre-tax loss of £78.7 million in the same period last year.
"Early indications are that second half unit revenues remain robust and therefore excluding the additional cost of fuel driven by the higher market price of jet and assuming no further significant disruption, our full year expectations remain broadly unchanged."
by Bev Fearis
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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