easyJet shares sink on losses and cautious H2 outlook

Budget airline easyJet (LON:EZJ) has announced that it expects to deliver a headline loss before tax of £275 million for the six months ended 31st March. Total revenues will be 7.3% higher than in the comparable period, but costs rose by 18.8% driven by increases in fuel units costs and capacity.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said: “easyJet has performed in line with expectations in the first half. We have flown around 42 million customers with a significantly reduced number of cancellations and continued high levels of customer satisfaction.

“We are operationally well prepared for Brexit. Now that the EU Parliament has passed its air connectivity legislation and together with the UK’s confirmation that it will reciprocate, means that whatever happens, we’ll be flying as usual. I am pleased that we have also made progress on our European ownership position which is now above 49%.

“For the second half we are seeing softness in both the UK and Europe, which we believe comes from macroeconomic uncertainty and many unanswered questions surrounding Brexit which are together driving weaker customer demand. We are rolling out further initiatives to support our trading and are making significant progress in our Operational Resilience Programme, which is designed to make the easyJet flying experience better for our customers over the summer.

“As a highly profitable airline with one of the strongest balance sheets in aviation easyJet is well positioned to seamlessly connect Europe with the warmest welcome in the sky“.

The price of easyJet shares dropped by 8.86% to 1,018.50p (as of 12:00 GMT).