EasyJet PLC EZJ, -2.20% said Thursday that bookings in the past 10 weeks have been 6% above the same period in 2019, as it reported a narrowed pretax loss for the first half of fiscal 2022 while revenue rose because of increased capacity.
The U.K. budget airline said it had sold 76% of forward bookings for the third quarter and 36% for the fourth.
Load factor–a metric that measures the percentage of available seating capacity that has been filled with passengers–was 77.3% in the first half, it said.
The carrier said that ticket yields–the amount earned per passenger mile–sold for the fourth quarter are currently 15% above 2019, and that it expects the load factor to be over 90% in that period.
EasyJet said that it expects capacity in the third quarter to be around 90% of fiscal 2019, and that the capacity on sale for the fourth quarter is around 97% of fiscal 2019.
The company said pent-up demand and the removal of travel restrictions gave way to a strong and sustained recovery in its performance.
The low-cost carrier said that for the half year ended March 31, its pretax loss was 557 million pounds ($687.6 million), compared with a loss of GBP645 million a year earlier.
The company’s adjusted pretax loss–a metric that strips out exceptional and other one-off items–was GBP545 million, compared with a loss of GBP701 million, it said.
In April, the low-cost airline said that it expected an adjusted pretax loss in the GBP535 million to GBP565 million range.
Revenue for the period was GBP1.5 billion, compared with GBP240 million, it said.
The company said passenger revenue rose to GBP985 million from GBP170 million, with ancillary revenue per seat in the period rising to GBP15.12 from GBP10.46.
easyJet said higher fuel and dollar exchange rates are layering additional cost in the second half.
“We are confident in our plans for summer, which will see us reaching near 2019 flying levels,” Chief Executive Johan Lundgren said.
Shares at 0709 GMT were up 10.20 pence, or 2.3%, at 512.60 pence.
Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com