is almost entirely due to the work of BALPA on their behalf.
Really, Norman? Perhaps they're so thrilled with the BALPA engineered 5-2/5-4 rostering fiasco they feel a tad disinclined to agree with you. Its interesting to note, though, that you seem to feel solidarity, whatever that is, is a reasonable expectation? To quote a wise old friend, you'll find more loyalty in a Bangkok whorehouse than you will among a group of pilots. Self interested to the core, which is a fact not lost on you, I'm sure, in your many years in the biz. While you're cooling off, here's some salutary reading from the Financial Times to put your 'struggle' in perspective. Seems the roadside breakdown chappie you have running your airline this week has his hands full! Wonder what Reykjavik makes of it all?
EasyJet sees losses rising on high fuel prices
By Kevin Done, Aerospace Correspondent
Published: February 22 2006 17:26 | Last updated: February 22 2006 17:26
EasyJet, the UK low cost airline, forecast on Wednesday a
doubling of first-half pretax losses under the impact of higher fuel prices.
Traditionally the group makes all of its profits in the second half of its financial year from April to September. The airline said in a trading update that it was still planning to achieve “mid to high single-digit percentage profit growth” for the full year to the end of September.
Andrew Lobbenberg, aviation analyst at ABN Amro, EasyJet’s corporate broker, forecast a rise in pre-tax profits for the full year of 7 per cent from £82.6m to £88m.
For the first six months from October to March the airline forecast a
rise in pre-tax losses from £22m to around £45m.
Unit fuel costs were expected to rise by 50 per cent in the first half leading to an additional charge of £55m.
This would would wipe out the progress made in cutting non-fuel costs and in increasing ancillary revenues per passenger, which include higher online hotel bookings, travel insurance and car hire sales, where EasyJet receives commission earnings.
In the first quarter from October to December EasyJet revenues rose by 14 per cent from £279m to £319m. Passenger numbers rose by 11 per cent from 6.7m to 7.4m.
In the quarter unit costs excluding fuel fell by 5 per cent, but the rising fuel price caused total unit costs to rise by 3 per cent.
Sir Colin Chandler, EasyJet chairman, said that market conditions remained “tough” and the airline expected a slight reduction in unit passenger revenues for the year, as fare levels came under pressure.
For the full year EasyJet said that capacity measured by available seats would rise by around 15 per cent, as it continued to take delivery of a stream of new Airbus A319 aircraft.
The fleet is set to expand in three years from 109 aircraft at the end of last September to 154 aircraft by September 2008. EasyJet placed a firm order for 120 Airbus aircraft in December 2002 and has also started to exercise its purchase rights on additional aircraft including 20 more A319s between October 2008 and September 2009.
The airline is expanding its presence in Italy, in particular from its new base at Milan Malpensa airport and is also adding more routes from its Liverpool and Glasgow bases.
Last week EasyJet announced daily new routes from Glasgow to Alicante, Berlin-Schönefeld and Malaga and a weekly flight to Palma. This would bring the number of destinations served from Glasgow to nine and would increase its capacity at the base by 19 per cent.
The EasyJet share price fell by 5½p or 1.4 per cent to close at 384½p.