Easyjet takes £65m ash hit

28th Jul 2010 08:08

Easyjet's sales rose by 5.3% to £759.2m in the three months to June despite volcanic ash cloud disruption that cost the airline £65m.This was the first statement from the no-frills airline's new chief executive Carolyn McCall, who has walked into a public row between the company and founder and major shareholder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou over the direction of the company.Sir Stelios, who is threatening the airline over the use of the "easy" name, has repeatedly questioned the company's growth plans.He said: "I can't believe that in a month when the company has messed around something like two million passengers with delays and cancellations because it did not have enough crew there are still people who want to buy even more aircraft."The airline, which has been criticised for its punctuality, today admitted it would employ at least three extra planes and crew during the summer.This temporary action would lift costs by up to 3%. Crew shortages and punctuality at London's Gatwick airport were a pressing problem, McCall added."We need to get Gatwick performing well for us because it affects the whole network," Ms McCall said. "There are crew shortages in certain places and we need to get to the bottom of why."As a result of the ash cloud, easyJet cancelled 7,314 flights, affecting nearly a million passengers. The number of seats flown grew by 1.7%, before the impact of the volcano planned seat growth was 10%. The load factor increased by 1.4 percentage points to 86.1%. Total revenue per seat increased by 3.5% to £53.23, driven by passenger revenue growth up 4.5% "Forward bookings are in line with the prior year and with 64% of the fourth quarter seats now sold the company continues to expect to make a pre-tax profit for the year of between £100m and £150m at current exchange rates and fuel prices," McCall added.