easyJet has published its financial results for the first half of 2022, reporting a loss of more than $691 million. But despite the loss, the airline remains confident in a “strong summer ahead”, predicting that its summer plans will see it “reaching near 2019 flying levels”.
According to the report, which was issued on May 19, 2022, during the first half of 2022, the British low-cost airline repaid more than $372 million of commercial paper, meaning that the carrier managed to fulfill all of its debt maturities until FY2023.
As the UK government began to ease air travel restrictions, easyJet reported a sharp rise in passenger traffic. During the first six months of the year, the carrier served 30.3 million passengers, leading to a notable revenue increase of almost $1.9 million.
“Passenger revenue increased by 479.4% to £985 million as travel restrictions eased in the early part of H1 as customers enjoyed the late summer season before a temporary pause in December and January as a result of the Omicron variant. Trading strengthened again in February and March as restrictions were removed,” the statement reads.
While the carrier recorded a $691 million loss, it shared a promising outlook for operations in the summer season of 2022. The airline said it faces summer with “optimism” as it has already sold 76% of bookings for the third quarter and 36% for the fourth quarter of 2022.
“With customers returning strongly to us whilst also driving a step-changed revenue capability, we expect to deliver attractive continued improvement,” the statement adds.
The airline expects to operate around 90% of FY19 capacity in Q3 2022 and to carry over 1.1 million customers by the end of the current FY.
“As we return to a more normal summer season, we are ready to capture the increased levels of demand right across our network. We are confident in our plans for summer which will see us reaching near 2019 flying levels and look forward to competing with our renewed strengths as a winner in the post-pandemic recovery of European aviation,” easyJet chief executive, Johan Lundgren said.