Budget airliners easyJet PLC (LON:EZJ) and Wizz Air Holdings PLC (LON:WIZZ) saw their shares rise in early trading Tuesday as both reported double-digit passenger growth in October, however, easyJet saw a slight dip in its load factor.
The white and orange liveried airline said passenger numbers for the month had risen 14.1% year-on-year (YOY) to around 8.6mln, while in the rolling 12 months it had increased by 10.6% to 89.5mln.
READ: Easyjet carries an extra 1mln passengers in September but load factor slips
However, YOY the company’s load factor (i.e. the percentage of seats filled) declined by 2 percentage points to 90.5%, while in the rolling 12 months it fell 0.1 percentage points to 92.7%.
Meanwhile, Wizz reported a YOY passenger increase of 14.8% to 3mln and a 20.5% rise to 33.1mln over the rolling 12 months.
Load factor also rose 1.9 percentage points to 94% while over the rolling 12 months it was up 0.7 percentage points to 92.1%.
Wizz's capacity also increased over the period with the number of seats rising 12.5% YOY to 3.2mln and 19.6% to 35.9mln on the rolling 12 months.
EasyJet shares were up 0.3% at 1,229p while Wizz Air shares were up 1.5% at 2,657p.