EasyJet confident as summer demand ramps up

STORY: EasyJet's confidence is sky high ahead of the all-important summer season.

The UK airline sees strong demand for holidays during the period it makes all its profit.

EasyJet has added more flights as it recovers from health crisis lows.

It said Thursday (May 18) capacity would be back to pre-health crisis levels between July to September this year.

The firm also said it expects to make revenue per seat a fifth higher than last year for the April to June period.

EasyJet's positive outlook is similar to rivals like Ryanair and Lufthansa.

The airlines have found demand has soared this year, despite consumers being squeezed by inflation.

Shares in easyJet have climbed 60% since the start of the year.

But the stock is still down more than a half from before the health crisis.

For the six months to the end of March easyJet reported a pretax loss of $511 million.

That was a 25% improvement on last year.

For the full year, analysts currently expect easyJet to post a pretax profit of $435 million.