ClickAJob News

Budget airline easyJet today reported a 5.7 per cent growth in third quarter revenues, while also revealing a 17.5 per cent increase in traffic last month.

The low-cost operator said that it carried 3.72 million passengers in July, up from 3.17 million in the same month of the previous year.

Passenger numbers were also up 13 per cent to 9.9 million over the three months ending June 2007, easyJet confirmed in a statement.

Total revenues for the quarter subsequently rose to £486.5 million, up from £460.2 million for the corresponding period in 2006.

However easyJet's total revenue per seat slumped by eight per cent over the third quarter, with the impact of reduced lead in fares, increased promotional activity and the doubling of UK air passenger duty blamed for the drop.

The airline's bosses nonetheless remain upbeat about the company's performance, stressing that load factors, a measure of how efficiently flight operators fill available seats, continue to be high.

Over the third quarter, easyJet's load factor was 84.5 per cent, although the airline admitted that it had fallen by 1.5 per cent on the previous year. In July the airline's load factor also slumped by 1.8 per cent.

But welcoming the rise in traffic over the period, the airline's chief executive Andy Harrison stressed: "A strong increase in passenger numbers to almost ten million and continued high load factors in the third quarter reflect the strength of easyJet's business model, based on low fares with care and convenience."

The carrier also reported a fall of more than ten per cent in unit costs, excluding fuel, as a result of efficiency improvements and investments regarding its fleet.

As a result easyJet said that its full-year guidance remained unchanged, with the company expecting its pre-tax profits to grow by between 40 and 50 per cent in the year to September 2007.