EasyJet has warned that the late Easter this year will have a negative impact on its first half financial performance.
It is expecting to report a loss before tax of £70 million to £90 million, compared to £61 million loss reported in the first half of last year when Easter fell on March 31.
Announcing its first quarter results today, the airline said it managed to grow revenue per seat by 3.4% on a reported basis to £55.71 per seat or by 1.4% at constant currency.
This was despite "strong prior year comparators from post-Olympic trading in the UK and a challenging competitive environment".
"The growth in revenue per seat was driven by careful management of capacity, combined with the performance of allocated seating and the management of fees and charges," it said.
"Revenue per seat also benefited from longer average sector lengths in the quarter."
Seats flown grew by 4.1% to 16.1 million and passengers carried increased by 4.2% to 14.3 million.
Load factor increased by 0.1 percentage points to 88.7%.
