EasyJet and Aer Lingus enjoy rise in low-cost air customers
EASYJET carried almost a tenth more passengers in June compared to a year ago, figures out yesterday showed.
The low-cost airline said it took 5.43m passengers last month, up 9.7 per cent on June 2011, while its load factor, a measure of how full its flights are, jumped 1.6 percentage points to 89.9 per cent.
In the year to the end of June, EasyJet carried 57.37m passengers on its budget flights around Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. This figure is up 7.5 per cent on the previous year.
Meanwhile Irish carrier Aer Lingus reported a two per cent rise in passenger numbers in June, with 918,000 customers travelling on its flights last month.
The firm, which is entangled in a takeover bid from Ryanair, said long-haul traffic jumped 12.5 per cent on a year ago, to 99,000, while short-haul traffic ticked up 0.1 per cent to 819,000.
Aer Lingus’ load factor increased by 3.8 percentage points on a year ago to 82.6 per cent. The company has said an offer from Ryanair that values it at €694m is not lucrative enough.