Budget airline Easyjet (LON:EZJ) reported a growth in both revenue and passenger growth during the first quarter of 2018, pushing shares up over 5 percent in early trading.

Total revenue in the first quarter increased by 14.4 percent to £1,140 million, aided by the company adding 1.4 million passengers during the period. The figure represents a 6.6% increase in revenue per seat at constant currency.

The number of passengers carried increased by 8 percent in total, to 18.8 million, driven by a growth in capacity of 5.5 percent to 20.4 million seats

The airline’s main costs in the quarter were a 2.1 percentage point increase in year on year load factor, severe adverse weather driving increases in de-icing and disruption costs and costs relating to the industrial action in October.

Commenting, Johan Lundgren, easyJet Chief Executive said:

“easyJet delivered a strong start to the financial year with a significant growth in revenue in part driven by an increase in passengers flown and strong growth in inflight and ancillary sales as we offer more and better quality options for our passengers

easyJet also completed the acquisition of part of Air Berlin’s operations at Berlin Tegel airport during the quarter, successfully started its flying programme there at the start of 2018.

“We expect to reach a series of milestones in 2018 including the roll out of our full summer schedule at our newly established base at Berlin Tegel, an increase in passenger numbers from 80 million to around 90 million, ‘Worldwide by easyJet’ will be expanded to around half of easyJet’s network allowing customers to connect to long-haul services, our fleet will increase to over 300 aircraft by spring 2018 and we will take delivery of our first A321neo aircraft. There’s a lot to look forward to.”

Shares in easyjet are currently up 5.60 percent at 1,651.00 (0811GMT).