Easyjet has announced record annual profits for a fifth consecutive year, as the airline enjoyed strong passenger growth and falling fuel prices.
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Load factor, or the number of available seats sold, also hit a record 94.4%.
Passenger numbers rose six percent to 68.6 million and revenues swelled 3.5 percent to nearly 4.7 billion.
“People will want to continue to live their lives, and traveling is part of that”, McCall said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
“These aircraft will offer increased flexibility in fleet planning, including the faster replacement of a few of our A319 aircraft, lower overall unit costs and ensure Easyjet can continue to grow past 2019 to support increasing total shareholder returns”, it added. On the cost side, easyJet Lean generated £46 million in cost savings in 2015 and is expected to deliver a further £50 million in 2016, via IT and productivity improvements, coupled with increased scale.
“Our outlook for the longer term is positive”, CEO Carolyn McCall said in the statement. She promised 7% a year passenger growth while “sustaining margins through rigorous cost control”.
She added: “We remain totally focused on our network advantage, digital leadership and offering our customers great low fares and service”.
Budget airline easyJet has appointed its first head of data science, Alberto Rey-Villaverde, to boost its use of artificial intelligence.
“Airbus is proud to have partnered easyJet along the airline’s impressive achievements and growth”.
EasyJet has been bouyed by falling fuel prices, which have drastically reduced costs and improved profitability.
Separately, the company announced the appointment of Chris Browne, formerly chief operating officer of TUI Airlines, as a non-executive director with effect from January 1, 2016.
And easyJet is confident about future trading conditions.
More favorable economic trends mean easyJet’s forward bookings are in line with expectations, creating “some confidence” for the year ahead.
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McCall dismissed the talk, saying easyJet’s main competition was from airlines such as British Airways, Air France-KLM and others. easyJet forecast only a “slight decline” in revenue per seat on a constant currency basis for the six months to the end of March.
