EasyJet delivers strong rise in passenger traffic in August
BUDGET airline easyJet carried 5.54m passengers during August, notching up a 6.5 per cent rise on last year’s figures in what is traditionally the travel industry’s busiest month.
For the 12 months to the end of August, easyJet took 54.1m passengers on its flights – a rise of 11.8 per cent on the previous year.
In August the carrier’s load factor – a measure of how full its flights are – dipped 0.1 percentage point to 92.2 per cent. However, easyJet’s load factor in the year to August rose 0.3 percentage points to 87.2 per cent.
The airline runs a no refunds policy, meaning that all the tickets it sells count towards the figures, even if customers fail to turn up for their flight.
The robust numbers come as easyJet attempts to fend off another boardroom assault by founder and 38 per cent shareholder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Sir Stelios has called for easyJet to remove Professor Rigas Doganis after the director backed the purchase of 35 aircraft from Airbus in January, a transaction that Stelios fiercely opposed.
He has already claimed the scalp of fellow board member Sir David Michels over the Airbus purchase.