EasyJet anticipates short-term impact from Omicron ahead of summer recovery

LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – British airline easyJet warned on Thursday that it expects an impact from the Omicron variant on its performance this quarter but said it expects strong demand this summer with capacity close to pre-pandemic levels.

In its first quarter ending at the end of December, the company flew at 64% of its pre-pandemic capacity but its available seat-kilometre capacity came out at 77% and did not reach the forecast of more than 80% in due to reduced customer demand in December related to the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren, however, said bookings in Britain jumped in early January when travel restrictions were eased and the UK government announced the lifting of the testing requirement next month.

“We expect a strong summer, with pent-up demand that will see easyJet return to near 2019 capacity levels, with beach and leisure destinations from the UK doing particularly well,” a- he declared.

EasyJet is flying in January at 50% of its pre-pandemic capacity and will gradually increase it to 67% in the current quarter, the company said.

In November, before the impact of Omicron was visible, easyJet had forecast its capacity for that quarter to be around 70% of pre-pandemic level.

The British group’s total turnover for the first quarter increased to 805 million pounds sterling (965 million euros) against 165 million pounds a year earlier. The pre-tax loss for the quarter fell by almost half, to 213 million pounds. (Report Paul Sandle; French version Elena Vardon, edited by Blandine Hénault)