easyJet share price underperforms as group suffers 350 cancellations in July

easyJet (LON:EZJ suffered 350 cancellations last month, the blue-chip airline has disclosed as it updated investors on its July traffic. The report comes after the budget carrier recently posted a drop in profits for the three months to the end of June and said that it was facing an uncertain quarter going forward.

easyJet’s share price has climbed into positive territory in today’s session, having added one percent to 1,008.97p as of 14:27 BST. The shares, however, are underperforming the broader London market, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index having added 1.53 percent to 6,735.66 points as the Bank of England moved to trim rates and unveil further stimulus in an effort to spur growth in the wake of the EU referendum. The budget carrier’s shares have lost just under 40 percent of their value over the past year, and are down by more than 42 percent in the year-to-date.

easyJet announced in a statement today that it had cancelled 350 flights last month, as compared with 318 for July last year. The number, however, is well below the 800 cancellations seen in June. The airline meanwhile carried 7.5 million passengers last month, up 6.7 percent as compared with the prior-year period, while the carrier’s load factor which measures the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available, rose 1.5 percentage points to 95.8 percent. On a 12-month rolling basis, easyJet carried 72.34 million passengers, up 6.8 percent year-on-year, while the group’s load factor came in 0.3 percentage points higher at 91.7 percent.
Analysts at Goodbody reiterated their ‘hold’ rating on easyJet today, without specifying a price target on the stock. Liberum, which does not have a valuation on the shares either, remains bearish on the blue-chip carrier with a ‘sell’ rating.
As of 14:57 BST, Thursday, 04 August, easyJet plc share price is 1,009.50p.