Budget airline, EasyJet, experienced a large drop in shares after reporting losses for the first half of 2025, but still remains confident in its financial year targets.
The company announced headline loss of £394 million before tax for the first half of this year, compared to £350 million last year.
Shortly after the market opened, EasyJet’s shares were down by 3%.
EasyJet CEO Kenton Jarvis told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe that the first half is normally an interesting time for airlines.
“The first quarter is October through to December, and in that quarter, we actually performed very well,” he said.
“Now in the second quarter, where we did make a slightly larger loss, that’s the period where airlines ramp up ... In this quarter, we made important capacity investments and flew further, which helped drive productivity, and that helped reduce our unit costs during the half.”
Jarvis also said that while capacity strains affect all airlines, demand is still there and he is confident that the company will meet forecasts and report a profit for the financial year.
He said EasyJet is expecting good demand in the summer.
“As you said, our book position for both our third quarter, which ends in June, and our fourth quarter, which ends in September, are ahead of where they were this time last year,” Jarvis said.
“We’re also seeing very positive bookings in our holidays division, where we’re expecting something like 25% passenger growth year-on-year.”
In the company’s results statement, Jarvis said the airline's confidence in the second half of the year is supported by current bookings.
“We remain focused on delivering another record summer this year, expecting to drive strong earnings growth as we continue to progress towards our target of sustainably generating over £1 billion of annual profit before tax,” he said.
At the time of writing, EasyJet (LON: GBX) stock is trading at £549.80, down 2.62% from the previous close. The company’s market cap is £4.17 billion.
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