11th Mar 2020 09:11
(Alliance News) - Jet2holidays operator Dart Group PLC on Wednesday said it expects its full-year profit for the current financial year to be "significantly ahead" of market forecasts, but warned "momentum has weakened" due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Helped by its Leisure Travel unit, Dart said pretax profit before foreign exchange is expected to beat market expectations for the financial year ending March 31. In financial 2019, pretax profit before foreign exchange movement came in at GBP180.1 million.
Dart added: "Until very recently, customer demand for our very popular package holidays and flight-only Leisure Travel products has remained consistently strong, with the important January and February booking performance resulting in our summer 2020 bookings tracking well ahead of our 16% summer seat capacity increase.
"Understandably, however, momentum has weakened over recent weeks with the increased reporting of covid-19 cases in Europe. Nevertheless, our current cumulative summer 2020 bookings remain above those at this time last year."
Dart also added that due to the uncertainty and "limited visibility" of the coronavirus impact, it is unable to give any pretax profit before forex guidance for financial 2021.
"We continue to monitor the situation carefully and are taking proportionate actions to underpin the stability of the business, which includes reducing capacity on some routes where warranted, but always keeping at front of mind the need to ensure our customers experience the Holidays they deserve," Dart said.
Elsewhere, its Fowler Welch distribution and logistics unit is "trading in line with expectations".
Shares in the company were 6.6% higher at 1,034.00 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.
By Eric Cunha; [email protected]
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