By
Tolu Ajiboye
December 13th, 2023
In its full 2020 fiscal year, which ended in September, EasyJet reported £3 billion in revenue.
The British airline EasyJet Plc (OTC: ESYJY) reported over 50% revenue loss in its fiscal year due to the persisting coronavirus pandemic. At the peak of the pandemic, airlines were grounded as one of the measures in curbing the unprecedented global health crisis. As a result, EasyJet reported its first annual loss since it was founded in 1995.
EasyJet Records 50% Loss in Revenue
In its full 2020 fiscal year, which ended in September, the British airline reported £3 billion in revenue. This is a loss of 52.9% year-on-year as the company reported £6.4 billion in 2019. As a result of the pandemic, EasyJet passengers also dropped by 50% during the 2020 fiscal year. This equals to about 48.1 million passengers compared to 96,1 million recorded in 2019.
As noted by the airline, the losses can be tied to the global stay-home order enforced by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19.
In its report for the 2020 fiscal year, EasyJet highlighted its other results. EasyJet said that capacity plunged 45.7% from the previous year. Also, the percentage of passengers’ seating capacity fell by 4.3 percentage points to 87.2% during the 2020 fiscal year.
Speaking to CNBC, EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren is confident that the company will benefit from the recovery phase. He said:
“We also know the attraction to the brand in terms of the trust it generates for customers, and also, the value for money that we represent gives a good foundation and bounce back strongly when the recovery comes…the longer these travel restrictions are in place, it actually increases the pent-up demand.”
Explaining further on recovery, the company said that sales increased 876% over five days following the UK government’s decision to lift mandatory quarantine on arrivals from Canary Island.
Stock Jumps on Positive Covid-19 Vaccine News
On the 16th of November, Moderna Inc (NASDAQ: MRNA) announced that its coronavirus vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273 was over 94% effective. Similarly, Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) reported that their vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, was 90% effective.
Lundgren said that the vaccine’s progressive news is “definitely good news for us [EasyJet].” He added that the news of effective vaccines may encourage people to make future traveling plans.
As a result of the positive news on the vaccines, EasyJet stock jumped. Currently, EasyJet, which has a fleet of 331 aircraft, is closed at $10.20. This is a 4.40% increase over its previous close of $9.77. The British airline increased 38.64% over the past three months and nearly 51% in the past month. Also, EasyJet has climbed 8.56% in the last five days.
In its year-to-date record, however, the company is down 45.95%. In addition, EasyJet has lost over 41% over the past year.