The Paris terror attacks in November ‘overshadowed’ Flybe’s last quarter financial performance, according to its trading statement today.
CEO Saad Hammad said the tragic events caused a ‘significant hiatus in airline bookings, not just to France, but also on UK domestic and near-continent travel’.
"As we expected, the combination of higher capacity in the market and lower spot fuel prices have led to lower yields sector-wide, even as the benefits start to come through from the unwinding of fuel price hedging," he said.
"In this uncertain environment, we decided to protect yields rather than to chase unprofitable marginal revenue."
Hammad added: "Passenger demand is now slowly recovering and reflecting a later booking profile."
The update, for the three-month period from October 1 to December 31, reported a 10.1% increase in seat capacity to 2.8 million seats.
Passenger volumes rose 2.1% to 1.92 million and passenger revenue grew 3.6% to £128.9 million, and there was a 1.2% improvement in passenger yield to £67.66.
But load factor dropped 5.4 percentage points to 68.9% and passenger revenue per seat fell 6.1% to £46.61.
