Third-quarter profits rise 16pc at easyJet

Low-cost carrier easyJet reported a significant year-on-year improvement in its third-quarter financial performance on Wednesday, with a 16% increase in headline profit before tax, amounting to £236m.

The FTSE 100 airline said that represented a £33m increase compared to the same period last year.

It saw an 8% rise in passenger numbers and a 1% increase in revenue per seat (RPS), aligning with previous guidance.

easyJet Holidays also performed robustly, delivering a profit before tax of £73m, a 49% increase from the third quarter of 2023.

The quarter ended with easyJet in a strong net cash position of £456m, up from £146m at the end of March.

It added that it had successfully taken ownership of all 16 new aircraft, with the final one delivered in July.

Bookings for the fourth quarter continued to build positively, with 69% of seats sold, marking a one percentage point increase year-on-year and a 7% increase in capacity on sale.

That had resulted in the sale of 1.5 million more seats for the peak summer period compared to the same time last year, with total yield remaining broadly flat.

Looking ahead to the first quarter of the 2025 financial year, easyJet had increased its on-sale capacity by about 5%, with 20% of the programme currently sold, a two percentage point increase year-on-year.

Revenue for the third quarter rose 11% to £2.63bn, primarily driven by an 8% increase in passengers, growth in ancillary revenue per seat, and continued expansion of easyJet holidays.

Despite a 1% increase in headline cost per seat excluding fuel due to longer average sector lengths, easyJet maintained flat headline cost per available seat kilometre excluding fuel year-on-year.

The airline said it also benefited from reduced disruption costs, which saw a 33% decrease in events compared to the previous year.

easyJet said it expected its second-half headline cost per seat excluding fuel to rise by low single digits year-on-year, with a slight increase anticipated in the fourth quarter due to the challenging European air traffic control environment and the impact of prior year airport negotiations.

Financing costs improved due to a decrease in gross debt and higher interest rates on floating-rate cash deposits.

Additionally, foreign exchange movements resulted in a non-operational, non-cash foreign exchange gain of £2m from balance sheet revaluations.

During the third quarter, easyJet operated 28.1 million seats, a 7% increase from the prior year's 26.2 million seats, maintaining a load factor of 90%, with a peak of 92% in June.

“Our strong performance in the quarter has been driven by more customers choosing easyJet for our unrivalled network of destinations and value for money,” said chief executive officer Johan Lundgren.

“This result was achieved despite Easter falling into March this year, demonstrating the continued importance of travel and this means we remain on track to deliver another record-breaking summer, taking us a step closer to our medium term targets.”

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.