EasyJet, Europe's second-biggest discount airline, rose as much as 7.6 per cent in London trading after saying it carried 20 per cent more passengers in June as it added planes and bought GB Airways.
EasyJet served 4.11 million travelers last month, compared with 3.44 million a year earlier, the Luton, England-based airline said today in a statement.
The load factor, or proportion of seats filled, gained 0.1 percentage point to 86.9 per cent.
The UK airline and Ryanair, its larger discount competitor, are the only European low-cost carriers planning to significantly extend capacity this year as record oil prices cause some airlines to scale back expansion plans.
EasyJet said today that 70 per cent of seats for the second half of the year ending September 30th have already been sold.
"Capacity growth of 19 per cent to 20 per cent confirms both management guidance that it has no plans to slow capacity growth over the key summer period,'' said Eamonn Hughes, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin.
Sharp passenger growth "and load factors remaining relatively flat lend support to suggestions that passengers are beginning to trade down from higher fare competitors.''
EasyJet advanced as much as 18.5 pence to 263 pence and was up 10 pence, or 4.1 per cent, at 8.34am.
Bloomberg