Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- Introduction: Hawkish Jerome Powell rattles markets
- US Federal Reserve indicates increase in interest rates as inflation rises
- Last night: Powell signals March rate hike is coming
- Asian shares fall to lowest in 15 months after US Fed nails on March rate rise
- UK car production slumps to lowest level since 1956
- Tesla sees record profit as electric car deliveries soar
There’s lots going on in the City this morning too, including budget airline easyJet reporting that the Omicron variant has hit takings.
EasyJet’s load factor, a measure of how many seats were filled, fell to 67% in December, from over 80% in October and November.
easyJet saw significant levels of late flight transfers out of December due to travel restrictions and concerns over Omicron.
Booking volumes jumped in the UK following the welcome reduction of travel restrictions announced on 5 January, which have been sustained and then given a further boost from the UK Government’s decision earlier this week to remove all testing requirements. We believe testing for travel across our network should soon become a thing of the past.
We see a strong summer ahead, with pent up demand that will see easyJet returning to near 2019 levels of capacity with UK beach and leisure routes performing particularly well.
Because leisure travel is notoriously seasonal, the key differentiator in airlines’ long-term survival will be the ability to offer and deliver more services and products that tempt and delight customers.
“While that sounds simple, the industry must overcome the obstacle of its dated underlying systems. Modern digital systems are essential to digitally sell and manage a broader variety of add-on services, including from third parties. These systems also need to gracefully cope with the reality that travel plans may be changed or rescheduled at short notice.
