Shares in Easyjet climbed higher this morning after the company reported solid results for the third quarter of its financial year.
The no-frills airline recorded a 12% increase in revenues to £721million, boosted by a 10.9% increase in revenue per seat to £51.42, or 4.8% on a constant currency basis. Passengers carried also increased, by 2.9%, to 11.9 million with a 12% growth in passengers originating from mainlaind Europe.
The headline numbers were in contrast to figures released from rival RyanAir (RYA) last week, which reported a far larger increase in passenger's carried, but lower revenues per seat.
Easyjet benefited from its strong presence in a number of European airports, including London's Gatwick Airport and airports in Milan, Paris and Madrid.
Both RyanAir and Easyjet have often boasted about the strength of their balance sheets compared to most competitors, and today was no different. Easyjet reported cash and money market deposits of £962million and undrawn financing facilities of US$0.5billion
Looking ahead to the all important summer flight season, Easyjet said it had now sold 75% of available summer seats. Easyjet also issued guidance for the full year ended 30 September 2009,stating that it expected underlying pre-tax profits to be in the range of £25million to £50million.
Commenting on the results, Andy Harrison, easyJet Chief Executive said:
"This has been a resilient third quarter and our position has continued to strengthen as we made market share gains across Europe. easyJet is continuing to perform relatively well in tough trading conditions and we expect to be one of the few airlines to make a profit this year."
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