EasyJet says passenger traffic for December rose 36.5 per cent from the same month in 2000, as it continued to woo customers from struggling full-service rivals.
Europe's second biggest no-frills airline, whose main rival in the European market is Ryanair, said it carried 670,390 passengers in December, up from 491,069 for the same month in 2000. It carried 690,928 passengers in November last year.
Total passengers carried in 2001 were 7,664,109.
The December load factor, measuring the number of seats sold as a percentage of capacity, was 82.8 per cent last month, up from 79.5 per cent in December 2000, said easyJet. It has been stimulating demand by offering cheap tickets.
In contrast, full-service airlines are hurting from the global economic slowdown and the September 11th attacks in the United States, with two European carriers collapsing and other airlines slashing jobs, grounding aircraft and cutting routes.
EasyJet said today it was talking to the world's two largest civil aircraft manufacturers - Boeing of the United States and Airbus SAS of Europe - about buying 75 new aircraft.