easyJet passenger figures show climb

Budget airline easyJet saw passenger figures climb steadily last month - but with the proportion of seats filled declining, figures showed today.

The Luton Airport-based carrier flew just under 1.9 million passengers in July. This 75% increase on last year’s figures was boosted by the company’s takeover of rival low-cost airline Go.

But if separate figures for easyJet and Go from last July are taken together, the rise was a more modest 9%.

EasyJet’s load factor – which measures the proportion of available seats filled – was down from 87.9% a year ago to 85.6% last month.

Taken over the previous 12 months as a whole, easyJet planes were 83.8% full.

Last month’s load factor showed a slight decline on June when easyJet planes were 85.8% full.

Figures released earlier this week from rival Ryanair show that the Irish carrier eclipsed easyJet in terms of passenger numbers – topping two million for the first time.

Meanwhile British airways flew 3.27 million passengers but with a load factor of just 76.4%.

Shares in easyJet were unchanged at 232p today.