Easyjet lifted by cheaper fuel
BUDGET airline Easyjet grew its revenue to £931m in the final quarter of 2014 and said yesterday that winter season losses will be lower than expected due to cheaper fuel.
Sales rose by £34m in the quarter ended 31 December, compared with the same period of 2013.
Passenger numbers were also up in the first quarter of the 2015 financial year, by 4.1 per cent from 14.3m to 14.9m. Carolyn McCall, Easyjet’s chief executive, said: ““We enjoyed a strong October – particularly on UK leisure flights to beach destinations and on French domestic routes where we continued to build passenger numbers after a busy September.”
Easyjet said its jet fuel bill will be between £30m and £35m lower in its first half compared with a previous forecast of £12m to £22m lower. Oil’s falling price is helping airlines.
The company added around 500,000 seats during the quarter, and launched a series of new TV ads aimed at business travellers, moves that McCall said enabled the firm to sell “record numbers of seats” to business travellers in the period.
Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald said Easyjet was trading well, and added that the company “should start to see the benefit of recent expansion of capacity at London Gatwick” in the second half of the year.
Shares in the airline increased by 1.88 per cent yesterday.