Easyjet and Ryanair say passenger numbers increased year-on-year
Companies: easyJet plc, Ryanair Holdings Plc
Two of the biggest budget airlines in the UK have reported significant increases in passenger numbers in December, despite turbulent market conditions.
Easyjet and Ryanair have both released figures for traffic in the past week showing a significant rise in passengers for December versus the previous year.
On Friday morning, Easyjet reported a 15.1% increase in passengers in December 2016 compared with 2015, whilst its load factor also increased by 3.3% per person. On a 12-month rolling basis, the FTSE 100 firm said passenger figures had increased 6.6% to 74.4m.
Whilst Ryanair, the Irish budget-airliner, reported on Wednesday that it had seen its passenger numbers increase 20% to 9m for the month, with a 3% increase in load factor.
The healthy increases in passenger numbers come despite challenging conditions following the Brexit vote, which resulted in Easyjet taking a big hit and posting its first profit warning since 2009.
Ryanair has been expanding its short-haul offering in the UK, with a significant new-year sale set to further increase passenger figures in Q1.
Easyjet shares opened up slightly higher on Friday before falling back to Thursday's close, whilst Ryanair shares are trading about 2% higher since its update on Wednesday.
