EasyJet to Beat Yearly Profit Guidance

British budget airline EasyJet said it will beat its previous profit guidance for the year after booking a $22.4 million one-off benefit from an investment in air traffic control.

“With the financial year now completed, we expect pre-tax profit growth to be towards the top end of our earlier guidance of 40 percent to 50 percent,” it said in a statement on Friday, adding that overall pre-tax profit growth would exceed this level after taking the one-off gain into account.

The $22.4 million relates to the write-back of EasyJet’s investment in The Airline Group, a consortium handling air traffic control in the UK.

Passenger numbers on EasyJet’s planes rose 14.2 percent year-on-year in September to 3.4 million. Its load factor fell 1.3 percentage points to 85.2 percent. Total revenue per seat fell 6.8 percent in the second half, but costs, excluding fuel, were cut by 10 percent.