easyJet revenue surges 16.7%

Budget airline easyJet reported a 16.7% increase in revenue for the quarter ended 31 December 2011, helped by higher seat prices and the absence of disruptive winter weather.

The no-frills airline said total revenue stood at £763m after a strong improvement revenues per seat, which were up 9.2% to £51.83 per seat. At constant currency seat revenue grew by 7.7% as the group benefited from the strong Swiss franc.

The number of seats flown increased by 6.9% to 14.7m, helped by the absence of significant winter disruption in the quarter. Excluding the impact of last year's disruption seats flown increased by 2.8%.

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Passengers carried increased by 8.1% to 12.9m while the load factor, which measures the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available, increased by 0.9 percentage points to 87.6%.

easyJet added that both ticket and non-ticket unit revenues showed good growth in the quarter.

Chief executive Carolyn McCall said, "easyJet has made a strong start to the year. This is due to firm control of costs, the strength of easyJet's network, tight capacity discipline and pricing actions taken in the second half of last financial year."

"The good performance in the quarter has meant we are cautiously confident in our outlook for the business. Although the economic environment remains weak, easyJet's affordable fares and our focus on making it easy for our customers combined with the actions that management is taking ensures that easyJet is well positioned to continue to succeed."