easyJet narrows half-year loss as revenue rises

13th May 2014 07:02

easyJet narrowed its half-year loss as revenue rose on the back of an increase in capacity and passenger numbers and lower than expected costs.The European airline posted a loss before tax of £53m in the six months to March 31st 2014, down 13.6% on the prior year. Total revenue increased 6.3% to £1.7bn, with revenue per seat up 1.5% on 2013. The average load factor, which represents the number of available seats to passengers, jumped 0.4 percentage points to 89%. Capacity grew by 3.6% to 31.1m seats."easyJet has delivered a solid first half performance despite the less benign capacity environment," said Chief Executive Carolyn McCall. "The results reflect our ongoing progress against our strategic priorities, and demonstrate the structural advantage easyJet has against both legacy and low cost competition in the European short haul market."In the half-year easyJet returned £308m or 77.6p per share to shareholders through the payment of an ordinary dividend at three times earnings cover and a special dividend.RD