No-frills airline easyJet has reported a 34% rise in pre-tax profits as it revealed it carried a record number of Northern Ireland customers over the year.
The company, which now flies from all three NI airports and is the biggest airline here, announced headline pre-tax profits of £610m for the year to September 30, up from £455m a year earlier.
And it said it had run its biggest ever flying programme in NI over the period, up 15%, and carried a record 5.3 million customers.
Over the period, it placed a ninth aircraft at its main base at Belfast International Airport, while launching operations from City of Derry Airport for the first time. It also operates some flights from Belfast City.
And it said that across the UK, it had carried 7% more passengers in the most recent 12-month period at 89.7 million.
Read more
Trading was also boosted by strong demand for easyJet Holidays, with the division seeing pre-tax profits jump to £190m, up 56% from a year earlier.
And in Northern Ireland, it said Majorca, Portugal, and the Canary Islands were most popular for beach packages, with Paris the most popular city break
The airline launched nine new routes from Northern Ireland in the last year and a new service to Reus in Spain will take off in April.
It said its operations here were now supporting 400 direct and indirect jobs.
New routes were to Prague, Marrakech, Fuerteventura, Larnaca, and Enfidha from Belfast International and Alicante and Palma from Belfast City. It now flies to Edinburgh and Liverpool from City of Derry Airport.
Ali Gayward, easyJet’s UK country manager, said: “Our success in Northern Ireland is a clear testament to the continued popularity of our flights and holidays, with a record 5.3 million customers choosing us for our trusted brand, unrivalled network and great value fares.
“The growth of our fleet has enabled us to further unlock the opportunity of the continuing demand we see for both leisure and business travel in Northern Ireland, where we are proud to be the largest airline serving even more airports, with routes from City of Derry and Belfast City, and we remain focused on providing even greater choice and fantastic value for our customers.”
easyJet launched services from Northern Ireland for the first time in 1998, with flights from Belfast International to London Luton, and opened a base at Belfast International in 2002.