Europe heatwave fails to deter holidaymakers as easyJet demand booms | easyJet

Holidaymakers are not being deterred by the ongoing heatwave in Europe, as travellers continue to jet off on their summer vacations amid booming demand for travel, according to easyJet.

The airline reported a record pretax profit of £203m for the three months to the end of June, surpassing analysts’ forecasts, as the demand for summer travel rebounds.

The record profit came despite ongoing disruption from strikes across Europe, including those by air traffic control managers in France, and planned industrial action by ground staff at London’s Gatwick airport.

EasyJet’s rivals across Europe are also expected to announce strong earnings for the past quarter, as consumer demand for travel after the pandemic continues unabated. Growth in bookings is predicted to continue into the winter.

The Luton-based carrier said it is seeing strong demand for its holidays, while bookings for winter trips have more than doubled compared with a year earlier.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet’s chief executive, said the carrier expected to make another record pretax profit between July and September, when it will be operating more than 160,000 flights.

He said the airline was increasing its capacity over the winter.

However, Lundgren warned of potential disruption to travel by strikes, including in air traffic control across Europe, and possible limited airspace availability.

“We are absolutely focused on mitigating the impact of the challenging external environment on our customers and flying them on their well-earned holidays,” he said.

This comes just days after easyJet cancelled 1,700 summer flights, primarily from Gatwick, potentially disrupted the holiday plans of thousands of passengers, blaming “unprecedented air traffic control delays”.

More air traffic control strikes on mainland Europe have been threatened, after a union at the Eurocontrol network manager operations centre gave formal warning of strikes in the next six months earlier in July. It did not name firm dates.

Lundgren said strikes had not yet led to any major disruption: “The situation is stable so it’s difficult to say what this will be going forward. It’s usually down to delays rather than cancellations across European networks.”

There have been 40% more days of strikes by air traffic control managers across Europe so far this year, compared with in 2019.

It came as the carrier said it was earning 23% more per seat on its aircraft compared with a year earlier, while the cost of flying its planes – not including fuel – has fallen slightly, with oil prices stabilising.