French air-traffic strikes limit April passenger growth at Easyjet

Annual traffic growth at Easyjet slowed sharply in April as the company was forced to cancel hundreds more flights than last year.

The budget airline cancelled 602 flights last month, compared with just 48 in April 2014.

"The increase in cancellations was largely driven by air traffic control strikes in France," the company said.

As a results, the number of passengers totalled 6.01m in April, up just 3.8% on last year. This compared to the 7.5% year-on-year jump reported for March and a 6.1% improvement in February.

Passenger traffic represents the number of earned seats flown. Because Easyjet is a no-refund airline, it counts seats regardless of whether or not the passenger turns up.

The load factor - a measure of how full its planes are - improved by one percentage point over last year to 90.8%.