EasyJet passenger numbers rise; InterContinental Hotels revenue up

London’s FTSE 100 was seen starting 10 points lower than Thursday’s close at 6,105.

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Passenger numbers grew at easyJet in April, by 6.1% to 6.37 million, the low-cost carrier reported on Friday morning.

Load factor was down 0.4 percentage points over April last year, however, to 90.4%.

On a rolling 12-months basis, the FTSE 100 firm flew 71.13 million passengers - a 7.4% improvement on a year ago.

Load factor was also up on a rolling 12 months to the end of April, by 0.5 percentage points to 91.5%.

First quarter revenue per available room at Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) rose 1.5% against a background of weak oil markets and earlier Easter which impacted hard in the Americas and Europe.

IHG said it expected to reverse the Easter effect in the second quarter.

Net system size was up 2.7% year on year to 742,000 rooms across 5,028 hotels. More than 5,000 rooms, or 38 hotels, opened in the first quarter, which is historically Intercontinental's slowest quarter for openings.

The company removed 8,000 rooms, or 42 hotels, and expected removals to trend back to within the 2-3% range for the full year.

In the press

Three-quarters of EU citizens working in the UK would not meet current visa requirements for non-EU overseas workers if Britain left the bloc. The rate would rise to about 81 per cent once new rules, due to come into force in April, take effect, according to research carried out for the Financial Times by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory. – Financial Times

As President Barack Obama has made clear, the debate about the UK’s membership of the EU largely comes down to trade. It is trade, most economists agree, that will determine the economic impact of a decision to leave the bloc — both because of direct effects and the knock-on consequences for foreign direct investment and productivity. – Financial Times

Sir Philip Green has launched a withering attack on the politicians who have led what he has branded a 'trial by media' against him in relation to the collapse of BHS. The Top Shop owner has written to Frank Field MP and Iain Wright MP, chairman of the House of Commons Work and Pensions and Business committees respectively, to tell them that they appear to be "leaping to conclusions" over his conduct during the period he and his family owned the collapsed retailer. – Telegraph

The British high street suffered its heaviest drop in sales last month since the financial crisis panicked shoppers into clamping their wallets shut. Last month’s bleak weather and nervousness about the health of the economy resulted in a 6.1pc fall in high street shopper numbers – the worst figures since November 2008, according to BDO. – Telegraph

US close

US stocks finished mostly lower on Thursday after weak economic data, as traders looked ahead to the non-farm payrolls report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.05% but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq shed 0.02% and 0.18%, respectively.

The weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department on Thursday revealed a bigger-than-expected increase. Initial jobless claims climbed to 274,000 in the week to 30 April from 257,000 the previous week, worse than forecasts of 260,000.