LONDON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- British low-cost carrier easyJet said on Tuesday its bookings for next summer look promising, although the outcome of Brexit remains uncertain fourth months ahead of the March 29 deadline.
"EasyJet plans to grow capacity by around 10 percent for the 2019 financial year, and by around 15 percent in the first half year. Forward bookings for the first half are 50 percent. Bookings for next summer look promising at this very early stage, slightly ahead of summer 2018," the airline said in a statement.
EasyJet, British biggest budget airline, expressed confidence that flying rights will be maintained between Britain and EU after Brexit, according to the statement.
To mitigate the impact of Brexit, easyJet has established easyJet Europe, which is headquartered in Vienna and will enable it to continue to operate flights both across the EU and domestically within EU countries after Britain has left the EU.
"The new structure means that easyJet is now a pan-European airline group with three airlines based in Austria, Switzerland and the UK," the carrier said.
EasyJet is well prepared to meet the EU requirement that airlines operate air services within the block must have a majority of its equity capital owned and controlled by qualifying nationals, referring to nationals of one of the member states of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, according to the airline.
Currently, an approximately 47 percent of easyJet shares are already held by qualifying nationals (excluding British nationals). It has focused mainly on Europe since 2016 with the intention of increasing this to above 50 percent prior to Britain's exit from the EU, it said.
EasyJet saw its headline profit before tax soared 41 percent to 578 million pounds for the 12 months to September and a record 88.5 million passengers during this period. (1 pound=1.28 U.S. dollars)
