Easyjet soars to over £1bn losses last year
Easyjet is set to reveal that losses hit more than £1 billion last year as Covid wreaked havoc on the travel industry.
The airline group has suffered a turbulent 12 months on the back of fluctuating travel restrictions across Europe, which caused the business to cut flight numbers heavily as holidaymakersstayedintheuk.
Bosses will be looking to reassure investors this week that plans to ramp up flights will go ahead. In a trading update last month, the group said pretax losses for the 12 months to September were expected to be between £1.13 billion and £1.17bn,slightlylowerthananalyst predictions.
Chief executive Johan Lundgren said a surge in demand across Europe and a return of bookings to winter sun destinations like Egypt and Turkey had allowed it to ramp up flight capacity to nearly 60 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
He said: "October half-term bookingshavebeenstrong,particularly to the Canary Islands, where we have increased our capacity to around 140 per cent of full-year 2019 levels."
But investors will be eager to hear whether plans to increase capacity to 70 per cent of prepandemic levels will go ahead as fears rise over a new Covid variant and potential return of travel restrictions in the UK.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the new variant was "the worst possible news for airline operators" as they were starting to see a rebound in demand.
He said: "These companies have been under significant financial stress and will want to avoidhavingtogobacktoshareholdersyetagaintoaskformore moneytohelpseethemthrough bad times, should we get new widespreadtravelrestrictions."