British airline EasyJet said on Tuesday it had suffered significant financial damage from industry-wide disruptions, particularly staff shortages, but still cut quarterly losses as demand recovered.
With airport staff shortages leading to flight cancellations, EasyJet said in a statement it booked a one-off fee totaling £133m ($160m).
This left the airline with a pre-tax loss of £114m in the group’s third quarter, or the three months to the end of June.
But that was a marked improvement from a loss of around £318m in the same period last year, as travel demand picked up after a Covid-induced downturn.
Third-quarter revenue rose more than eight-fold to £1.8 billion, while traffic fell back to near pre-Covid levels.
EasyJet Chief Executive Johan Lundgren said the airline has been hit by “short-term disruption issues” but is seeing “the return to flying at scale”.
Traffic increased more than sevenfold to 22 million passengers in the quarter after Covid travel restrictions were lifted.
That was almost 90 percent of the group’s capacity in 2019 before the pandemic devastated the global aviation sector, with planes grounded around the world.
EasyJet said “the unprecedented ramp-up across the airline industry, coupled with a tight labor market,” has caused “widespread operational challenges that have resulted in higher-than-normal cancellation rates.”
Despite the disruption, EasyJet operated 95 percent of its planned flight schedule in the quarter.
Airlines and airports are struggling to hire staff after laying off thousands of workers as the world entered the Covid pandemic lockdown.
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