British budget airline Easyjet carried 2.75 million passengers in March, up 7.1 per cent from a year earlier, it said today.
Easyjet's load factor, a measure of how efficiently it is filling its planes, was slightly ahead of expectations at 86.3 per cent, down from 91.1 per cent the year before when Easter fell in March, it said.
Easyjet said its total revenue for the 12 months to the end of March was up 17.7 per cent at £1.4 billion (€2 billion).
On Wednesday Iceland's FL Group said it had sold its 16.9 per cent stake in the airline, making a €140 million profit. The group had been rumoured to be considering a bid for Easyjet after it raised its stake last year above 16 per cent.
Rival low-cost carrier Ryanair said on Wednesday its load factor was 79 per cent in March, compared with 80 per cent a year earlier, and that it had carried three million passengers in the month, up 17 per cent from the year before.
British Airways, Europe's third-largest airline, said on Wednesday its March load factor had slipped 0.5 points to 75.2 per cent, but its passenger traffic had risen 1.8 per cent year on year.