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Air France pilot strike bumps EasyJet revenues by £5m
EasyJet has hiked its profit forecast for the year, seemingly benefitting from the two-week long Air France pilots' strike last month.
The budget airline expects full-year pre-tax profit to be between £575m and £580m, an increase on previous estimates of between £545m and £570m.
In a trading statement, EasyJet said the Air France strike had been worth around £5m in extra revenue to the company.
EasyJet also doubled the percentage increase it expects to see in revenue per seat for the year from one per cent to two per cent.
Carolyn McCall, EasyJet’s chief executive, said:
EasyJet has continued to execute its strategy, delivering another strong performance in the second half of the year. This has enabled EasyJet to deliver record profits for the fourth year in a row. This will also lead to our largest ever ordinary dividend payment as we are also proposing to increase the proportion of our profits after tax paid in dividends from 33 per cent to 40 per cent.Our performance demonstrates our continued focus on cost and progress against all our strategic revenue priorities and further emphasises EasyJet's structural advantage against both legacy and low-cost competition.