EasyJet praises business campaign for generating ‘record seats’
Easyjet has credited its first ever TV campaign directed at business travellers after selling a “record number of seats” over the fourth quarter of 2014 and subsequently cutting loss forecasts for the first half of the year.
The budget airline credited the campaign as it revealed it expects losses for the first half of 2015 to be between £10m to £30m – a significant drop compared to the £53m loss reported for the first half of 2014.
EasyJet launched the “Business Sense” TV campaign back in September as close rival Ryanair launched a campaign for its own business class proposition.
EasyJet’ chief executive Carolyn McCall said the airline had no issues filling the extra 500,000 seats it had added over the fourth quarter ending 31 December and sold a record number of seats to business travellers thanks to the “Business Sense” campaign. Passengers carried in Q4 rose by 4.1% to 14.9 million.
“We further strengthened our network in the quarter adding around 500,000 seats, the majority of which are from airports where EasyJet has a number one or number two position.,” said McCall, who in November credited a strong marketing strategy for EasyJet’s ongoing turnaround. “This combined with our new TV ads aimed at business travellers enabled EasyJet to sell record numbers of seats to business travellers.”
Total revenue for the fourth quarter grew by 3.8% to £931m, while revenue per seat grew by 0.8% – EasyJet said it took an average of around £56 per seat. This morning, shares in EasyjJet increased by 3.4% after it announced the cut in half-year loss projections.
Last week, EasyJet launched its first ever TV campaign for its sister brand EasyJet holidays service. Head of marketing Ian Cairns said the airline will continue to invest in marketing both for the airline and also for the holiday booking service throughout 2015.
