Fuel costs hit Jet2.com’s owner
DART Group, the parent company of airline Jet2.com, today said it still hoped to meet full year market expectations despite margins in its aviation arm being hit by higher fuel costs.
The group, which also runs distribution business Fowler Welch, said its pre-tax profits for its first half of the year would be ahead of the same period as last year with losses expected over its second half.
In a trading update for the six months to September 30, Dart said: “Despite the challenging economic environment, Jet2.com has had a satisfactory summer, with passenger growth of 32% to 3.2m in the six months to September 30, 2011.
“Load factors have increased by over 2% to almost 90% but yields have been under pressure. Margins are below last year principally as a result of higher fuel costs.
“Our ATOL protected holiday operation, Jet2holidays.com, continues to grow strongly, meeting customer demand for attractively priced package holidays from local airports and will take more than 200,000 customers on holiday this year.
“Our distribution business, Fowler Welch, which specialises in the distribution of chilled and ambient foods on behalf of leading supermarkets and their suppliers, continues to deliver leading customer service.
“Revenues have grown in line with the board’s expectations, although the business has also experienced some pressure on margins.”
Yorkshire-based Dart, which saw pre-tax profit increase to £4m for the year ended March 31, is set to announce its interim results November 17.
