Travel chaos costs easyJet £133m in Q3

Staff shortages and travel chaos at airports cost easyJet £133m in the third quarter, the budget airline said on Tuesday.

The company, which has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights due to a lack of plane crew and staff on the ground, reported a group headline loss before tax for the three months to June 30 of £114m, down from £318m last year.

"We have taken action to build the additional resilience needed this summer and the operation has now normalised," said chief executive Johan Lundgren.

It currently expects fourth-quarter capacity to be around 90% of pre-Covid pandemic levels with load factors above 90%.

Total group revenue rose to £1.75bn, up from £213m. Passenger revenue increased to £1.15bn from £152m and ancillary revenue increased to £603m from £61m, primarily due to the increase in capacity flown.

EasyJet's fourth quarter schedule is now 71% booked, 1 percentage point ahead of 2019.

"The unprecedented ramp up across the aviation industry, coupled with a tight labour market, has resulted in widespread operational challenges culminating in higher levels of cancellations than normal. Despite this, easyJet operated 95% of its planned schedule in Q3," the company said.

"Action taken to remove capacity and build resilience into Q4, due to caps imposed by London Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol alongside wider challenges within Europe has resulted in July operations to date being much improved."

Reporting by Frank Prenesti at Sharecast.com