6th Feb 2014 10:45
LONDON (Alliance News) - Low-cost airline easyJet PLC and Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus Group PLC Thursday both reported that traffic was up in January compared with a year earlier.
easyJet said it had carried 4.0 million passengers in January, up 3.7% on the year, pushing up its load factor, a measure of how full its planes are, by one percentage point to 85.4%.
The airline flew 61.5 million passengers in the 12 months to end-January, up 3.6% from the same period a year earlier.
Aer Lingus said its traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 1.4% in January as a further increase in long-haul traffic more than offset a decrease in short-haul traffic. However, passenger numbers fell 0.2% on the year, as while long-haul numbers rose to 59,000, from 55,000, short-haul numbers declined to 513,000, from 518,000.
Its total load factor in January rose 1.9 percentage points to 66.5% as traffic increased even though capacity fell 1.5%.
easyJet doesn't provide traffic figures in revenue passenger kilometres, which takes account of the number of revenue paying passengers aboard the plane by distance travelled.
easyJet shares were up 1.4% at 1,685.00 pence Thursday morning, while Aer Lingus was flat at EUR1.52 in London.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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