Bottom Line: Airline’s allocated seats prove well-suited to corporate flyers
AS WELL as yet another profit upgrade, EasyJet yesterday unveiled its new cabin crew uniforms. Long gone are the vivid polo shirts; some of the sober grey suits in the range could almost, almost pass muster in the Square Mile.
The City has in recent days sent shares in EasyJet up and down more often than its sharply dressed cabin crews, or its planes (which, the firm revealed yesterday, spend an astonishing 11.9 hours a day in action).
First HSBC had a very British moan about the weather, arguing that “weak beach demand” while the sun shone at home would hit EasyJet’s fourth-quarter sales, sending shares down four per cent down on Tuesday.
Then yesterday’s upbeat figures prompted a wave of analyst upgrades, fuelled partly by holidaymakers but also a rise in the amount each passenger is willing to spend on an EasyJet flight to £61.44.
Business passengers were also up 4.2 per cent in the quarter. As EasyJet’s new allocated seating attracts more and more corporate flyers, it appears that men in suits will continue to push up the firm’s share price. However, the suits at other airlines are already working on ways to win that business back.