EasyJet this morning reported a worse than expected 28% fall in annual pre-tax profit but said it was cautiously optimistic about its performance this fiscal year.
The airline said its fall in pre-tax profit to £52m for the year to September 30 reflected the Iraq conflict in the first half, the costs of integrating the acquisition of rival budget carrier Go and the acceleration of aircraft depreciation.
Revenue at the firm was up 69% to £932m, while profit before non-trading items, goodwill and tax was up 7% to £96m.
It said that passenger numbers were up 79% to £20.3m and in the period it had introduced 21 new routes.
Easyjet's chief executive Ray Webster said it had been a year of two halves and that the second half had seen a return to strong profits as an improved economic environment helped produce a profit.
He said: 'In the current financial year we are planning capacity growth in the order of 20%. Althought there remains a degree of uncertainty, the economic environment is improving and is sunstantially better than last year.'
