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LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in easyJet PLC took a hit on Wednesday after the low-cost airline said that while the number of passengers carried rose in March year-on-year, its load factor declined following cancellations due to strikes in France.
easyJet shares were trading down 2.2% at 1,488.00 pence on Wednesday morning, the worst performer in the FTSE 100 index.
easyJet said the number of passengers carried grew by 4.3% in March to 5.7 million from 5.5 million in the same month a year before. Load factor, however, declined by 1.3 percentage points to 91.3% from 92.6%.
easyJet said it had 611 flight cancellations in March, with the majority due to air traffic control strikes in France.
However, on Monday, rival budget airline Ryanair Holdings PLC had reported growth in both customer traffic and load factor in March, despite also suffering from flight cancellations due to the strikes.
Ryanair said passenger traffic grew by more than a quarter to 8.5 million in March from 6.6 million in March 2015, as load factor rose to 94% from 90%, despite the cancellation of 500 Ryanair flights during the month.
Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said easyJet's monthly traffic statistics showed it is "struggling to keep pace" with Ryanair, saying the fall in load factor was "worrying". Van Dulken noted that Ryanair's monthly traffic statistics were "record-beating".
"While easyJet points to French strikes as a mitigating factor for March weakness, it is interesting to note that Ryanair did too and yet it still managed to post steady growth in both passenger numbers and loads," van Dulken said.
On a rolling 12-month basis, easyJet's passenger numbers rose by 7.2% to 70.8 million from 66.0 million, and load factor grew by 0.6 percentage points to 91.5% from 90.9%.
On Tuesday, smaller budget airline Wizz Air Holdings PLC had reported a rise in both passengers and load factor in March.
The Central and Eastern European-focused low-cost airline said the number of passengers carried increased by 21% in March to 1.7 million from 1.4 million in the same month the year before, as load factor increased by one percentage point to 86.3% from 85.3%.
Shares in Ryanair were trading down 1.7% at EUR13.63 Wednesday, while Wizz Air shares were down 0.7% at 1,861.68p.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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