easyJet, the budget airline, announced that it expects its annual results to exceed market predictions due to strong bookings and demand at the start of the financial year.
The company’s shares rose 9.1% in London on Wednesday morning. In the Q1 ending December 31, easyJet reported a headline pretax loss of £133 million, which was a improvement from £213 million the previous year. Revenue also increased by 83% to £1.47 billion from £805 million.
“We have seen strong and sustained demand for travel over the first quarter, carrying almost 50% more customers compared with last year. Many returned to make bookings during the traditional turn of year sale where we filled five aircraft every minute in the peak hours, which culminated in three record-breaking weekends for sales revenue this month.”, – CEO Johan Lundgren said in the trading update release.
The company also reported a significant growth in passenger numbers and load factor, as well as profitability from its easyJet holidays package offering. Bookings since the beginning of the year have also seen a significant increase. The company expects revenue per seat growth to continue in the second quarter and predicts that it will make a pretax profit of £126 million for the current financial year.