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London, United Kingdom: British no-frills airline EasyJet said Thursday that its losses deepened in the six months to end-March after the Middle East regional tension sent jet fuel prices soaring.
The headline loss after tax came in at £377 million ($506 million) for first half of its financial year, a rise of 27 percent from the period a year earlier, as the US-Iran conflict also upended travel plans, the carrier said in a statement.
Revenue jumped 12 percent to £3.954 billion, as passenger numbers rose six percent over the reporting period.
EasyJet said "it has been impacted by the Middle East conflict through higher fuel costs and lower forward visibility".
It confirmed an estimate given in April that the Mideast war had increased fuel costs by £25 million.
While the group saw no disruption to fuel supplies, the second half of its financial year "will be impacted by the conflict in the Middle East, with higher fuel costs and near?term uncertainty around customer demand".
"Overall bookings for the summer period are behind where they were at this point last year," it added.
EasyJet said its first-half performance was also impacted by a £32 million "increase in legal provisions across a number of historic cases".
Chief executive Kenton Jarvis said that "despite conflict in the Middle East creating near term uncertainty, EasyJet is well placed to manage the current environment".
