Budget airline Easyjet (LON:EZJ) reported an 18 percent rise in pretax profit for the 2015 financial year, with chief executive Carolyn McCall saying she does not expect the recent terrorist attacks to have a lasting impact on profit.
The company’s revenues rose 3.5 percent to £4.68 billion, with passenger numbers up 6 percent to £68.6 million and their load factor rising to 91.5 percent.
“Our outlook for the longer term is positive. We expect demand in our markets to be sustained and for Easyjet to continue to be a winner in its markets. We will see passenger growth of 7% a year”, McCall commented.
Easyjet have been strongly affected by the recent bombing of a Russian aircraft over Egypt last month, which killed 224 people and caused the government to suspend flights from popular tourist resort Sharm el-Sheik. Easyjet passengers have since been stranded in Egypt, awaiting a flight home. Equally, in the light of the tragic events in Paris last Friday, travel to and from France has also fallen. However, McCall said she did not expect any lasting impact on trading:
“There’s always a cooling off after tragic events, but it does resume after a period of time, and I think that we will see this here.”
Easyjet are currently trading down 3.25 percent, despite their strong results, as the impact of the terrorism on travel companies begins to have an effect.
