EasyJet Performs Well But Confirms Crewing Issues

28th Jul 2010 07:14

By Kaveri Niththyananthan Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES LONDON (Dow Jones)--EasyJet PLC (EZJ.LN) said Wednesday it continued to deliver good commercial performance in the third quarter despite dealing with the fallout from volcanic ash, but acknowledged it had crewing issues in some parts of its network. EasyJet said in a trading update that fiscal-year pretax profit would be in line with previous guidance of between GBP100 million and GBP150 million at current exchange rates and fuel prices, which included a GBP65 million hit because of the impact of the volcanic ash disruption. EasyJet said 64% of available fourth-quarter seats have been booked and it expects total revenue per seat at constant currency in the final quarter to increase by between 2% and 3%, or by 2.5% for the fiscal year. Total revenue per seat for the three months to June 30 increased 3.5% to GBP53.23 from GBP51.42 a year earlier, while total revenue per passenger increased 1.8% to GBP61.79. Revenue increased 5.3% to GBP759.2 million from GBP720.8 million. Ancillary revenue, or income generated by means other than fares, including checked bag charges, edged slightly higher to GBP142 million from GBP140.2 million. Passenger numbers increased 3.5% in the three-month period to 12.3 passengers, mainly driven by growth in non-U.K. originating passengers, which increased 3.7 percentage points to 53.1% of total passengers. EasyJet had GBP1.3 billion of cash and money market deposits on its balance sheet, excluding restricted cash at June 30, with net cash at GBP47.1 million. An ongoing dispute between founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou and the board over the airline's fleet and dividend strategy that has escalated in recent weeks has helped push its share price 11% lower over the past three months, closing Tuesday at 434 pence. -By Kaveri Niththyananthan, Dow Jones Newswires; 4420 7842 9299; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 28, 2010 02:14 ET (06:14 GMT)