Easyjet raises profits forecast

Shares in budget airline Easyjet have risen 18% after it raised its profit guidance for the year.

Revenue in the three months to June was up 23% on a year ago to £935m after it increased its number of flights.

The firm said its new strategy, which includes appealing to more business customers, was seeing "good progress", with a 20% increase in business passengers seen in the quarter.

The airline now expects a full-year profit of between £200m and £230m.

Analysts had forecast a £179m profit.

Easyjet said passenger numbers had increased 17.3% compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

As well as running more flights, this growth was largely due to the comparable quarter in 2010 being affected by the Iceland volcano and ash cloud.

Excluding the impact of the volcano, there was an 8.8% growth in passengers.

Easyjet's load factor, which shows how full its planes are, improved slightly by 0.2 percentage points to 86.3%.

The airline also said it had sold 75% of seats for the key summer season.

Shares in Easyjet ended Friday trading up 55.30 pence at 368p.