easyJet see passenger growth accelerate in May

Year-on-year passenger growth at budget airline easyJet continued to accelerate in May, the group said on Friday.

easyJet flew 5,423,726 passengers in May 2012, 14.4% higher than the 4,739,436 in the same month of 2011. Meanwhile, the load factor, which is a measure of how full its planes are, improved by 3.9 percentage points (pp) from 84.1% last May to 88.0%.

The rolling 12-month number of passengers increased by 7.4% to nearly 56.9m, while the rolling load factor increased by 1.5pp.

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When compared with the same month the year before, passenger numbers declined by 0.4% in January but have improved every month since then, rising by 3.7% in February, 4.4% in March and 8.6% in April.

Worth noting, passenger numbers represent the number of earned seats flown, whether of not the passenger turns up as easyJet is a no-refund airline.

Shares were up 0.32% at 495.4p in early trading.

Alongside the group's first-half results released last month, easyJet Chief Executive Carolyn McCall said: "The economic environment remains uncertain, and the aviation industry faces headwinds such as the recent increase in UK APD [air passenger duty]."

"However, easyJet's strategy of low fares and our focus on making it easy for our customers, aligned with tight cost management and strictly managed allocation of capital, ensures that easyJet is well positioned to deliver good results for shareholders."

easyJet reported a loss before tax of £112m in the six months to the end of March, better than the £153m the year before, while revenues rose 15.6% from £1,26mm to £1,465m.

BC