British discount airline EasyJet said today that its passenger traffic for December rose by 36.5% from the same month in 2000, as it continues to win customers from struggling national carriers.
EasyJet said it carried 670,390 passengers in December 2001, up from 491,069 for December 2000. It carried 690,928 passengers in November last year.
The airline said that the total number of passengers carried last year were 7,664,109.
The December load factor, measuring the number of seats sold as a percentage of capacity, stood at 82.8% last month, up from 79.5% in December 2000.
The no frills airline, second behind Ryanair in Europe, said yesterday that it is in talks with two of the world's biggest plane makers about buying new aircraft for delivery up to 2007. The airline currently has a fleet of 27 aircraft and plans to have 48 by May 2004.
