easyJet's December traffic up 7.6%

7th Jan 2011 07:30

Budget airline easyJet sold 7.6% more seats in December than the same time last year and filled its planes slightly better as well.The no-frills carrier flew 3.66m passengers compared with 3.34m in December 2009. That takes the rolling 12-month figure to 49.72, up 7.9% on last year.Load factor, a measure of how well a firm fills its planes, edged up from 85.4% to 85.8% for the month and from 86% to 87.2% for the 12 months. In November, easyJet said full year profit surged nearly threefold on rising consumer demand and cheaper fuel, and announced it would pay its first dividend in 2012. For the year ended 30 September 2010 pre-tax profit surged to £154m from £54.7m the year before. This includes £27.3m of costs resulting from volcanic ash disruption. Total revenue increased 11.5% to £2.97bn.