EasyJet revenues increase as airline prepares for more flights
EasyJet reports increased revenues as the airline prepares to “emerge transformed post pandemic” and more people travel abroad.
Their headline loss before tax was £318m, reduced from £347m last year.
The no-frills airline reported a lower cash burn of £55m during the quarter ended 30 June 2021, in line with expectations.
Revenue increased to £213m compared to £7.2m in 2020.
The number of people taking flights increased to 3 million compared with the same period last year when easyJet’s fleet was grounded for all but two weeks of the quarter, with just 117,000 seats flown.
The budget airline said it will continue to provide additional flight capacity for popular routes as and when demand rises as travel opens up across Europe and for the fully vaccinated in the UK.
It’s capacity for the next quarter, EasyJet said, will be up to 60 per cent of its pre-pandemic levels.
The airline noted that more people are booking flights closer to their departure date in response to rapidly changing regulations.
For the next quarter just under half of easyJet flights have been booked, compared to 65 per cent in 2019.
The company said its confidence in demand for travel this summer was boosted by the bookings surge of 400 per cent which immediately following the easing of some travel restrictions after it was announced that fully vaccinated travellers would not need to quarantine when returning from ‘amber list’ destinations.
There are more bookings coming from Europe than the UK due to tighter restrictions on international travel in the latter. EasyJet said that while their business split between the UK and Europe is normally even – only a third of bookings have come from the UK.
Over 20 new routes were launched in June in Palma de Mallorca, Faro and Malaga, as part of easyJet’s move to focus on EU-touching capacity over than of UK-touching, reflecting the stronger traffic in Europe.
Chief executive officer of easyJet Johan Lundgren said: “I think the UK is being left behind and the rest of Europe is opening up, and is unwinding” in a press conference this morning. He criticised the government for applying different approaches to international travel compared to domestic travel and activities which, he said, “just doesn’t make sense.”
“The fact that you could go into a very crowded nightclub, with no face mask, no vaccination, no testing,” he explained, “but you can’t fly and lie on a beach in a low risk destination” was one example Lundgren gave.
The chief executive said easyJet had successfully managed the challenges of the pandemic through its operational responsiveness by “pivoting capacity to Europe where we saw the strongest demand and the very way we have approached the challenges that we faced means we have adapted and built back stronger for the future.”
Lundgren continued: “As a result, we will emerge from the pandemic with longer-term wins along-side baked in sustainable cost reductions, responding effectively and in ways our competitors don’t or can’t.”
EasyJet, the chief executive said, would be “transformed ready for the post-pandemic era.”