EasyJet continued its upward trajectory in the three months to December 31 with passenger numbers up 4.1% to 14.9 million with an improved load factor of 89.7%.
Total revenue grew by £34 million to £931 million and revenue per seat grew by 0.8% to £56.16 per seat as capacity rose by 2.9% to 16.6 million seats.
This came as the budget airline continued to increase frequencies in its first quarter on routes such as Gatwick to Geneva, and connect existing network points, such as Amsterdam to Hamburg.
Looking forward, the carrier said: “With first half bookings in line with last year, easyJet expects to report a first half loss before tax of between £10 million and £30 million assuming normal levels of disruption compared to the £53 million loss reported in the first half of last year.”
The carrier still expects to increase capacity by around 3.5% in the first half of the year and by around 5% for the full year.
“With first half bookings in line with last year, easyJet now expects first half revenue per seat at constant currency to increase by around 2% compared to the previous guidance of flat to very slightly up on the prior year,” easyJet said.
Chief executive Carolyn McCall said: “EasyJet has made a good start to the year by continuing to deliver its strategy of making travel easy and affordable for passengers.
“We enjoyed a strong October across the network – particularly on UK leisure flights to beach destinations and on French domestic routes where we continued to build passenger numbers after a busy September.”
She added: “We further strengthened our network in the quarter adding around 500,000 seats, the majority of which are from airports where easyJet has a number one or number two position.
“This combined with our new TV ads aimed at business travellers enabled easyJet to sell record numbers of seats to business travellers in the first quarter.
“EasyJet is well positioned to continue to deliver returns and growth to shareholders.”
Capacity at Gatwick rose by 10% in the three months – the first winter of flying based o the take off and landing slots acquired from Flybe.
But total cancellations for the quarter rose to 468 compared to 360 in the same period last year.
The majority of the cancellations took place in December mainly due to general strikes in Italy and Belgium, crew strikes in France and Italy as well as the impact of the runway closure at Gatwick airport due to an emergency landing by a Virgin Atlantic aircraft.
“On-time performance was broadly in line with the same period last year despite the impact of adverse weather across northern Europe and the impact of the Gatwick runway closure,” the airline said.