Low-cost airline easyJet has said revenues rose 11.4 per cent to £1.8 billion in a "robust" third quarter as the timing of Easter helped offset falling demand amid Brexit uncertainty.
The no-frills carrier said this year's later Easter boosted revenues by around £40 million.
Passenger numbers rose 8% in the quarter to June 30 to 26.4 million.
It said the group remained on track for annual pre-tax profits of between £400m and £440m, with second-half bookings now 78% sold.
READ MORE: easyJet contract provides boost for Edinburgh-based John Menzies
But easyJet said it had seen some "softening of demand due to tougher macroeconomic conditions across Europe as well as Brexit-related consumer uncertainty in the UK".
Its load factor - a measure of how well it fills its planes - also fell by 1.7 percentage points to 91.7%, partly due to a strong performance a year earlier when it benefited from the demise of rival Monarch.
Johan Lundgren, easyJet chief executive, said: "EasyJet's third-quarter performance was robust and despite the tougher macroeconomic conditions was in line with expectations."
Shares in easyJet lifted 4% in morning trading.
Online fashion giant Asos has warned profits will be lower than anticipated, blaming "operational issues" with its new warehouse roll-out.
Total sales in the four months to June 30 were up 12% compared with a year ago, but the warehouse problems impacted sales in Europe and the US, the company said.
READ MORE: Big Shetland oil bet pays off for investors
Asos boss Nick Beighton said profits will now be between £30 million and £35 million - compared with pretax profits of £102 million last year - and admitted ambitious targets at its Atlanta and Berlin warehouses would be missed.
He said: "Embedding the change from the major overhaul of infrastructure and technology in our US and European warehouses has taken longer than we had anticipated, impacting our stock availability, sales and cost base in these regions."
Slug and Lettuce pub owner, Stonegate Pub Company, is buying rival Ei Group in a deal worth £1.27 billion, both companies have announced.
The 285p-a-share deal is a 38.5% premium on the share price on Wednesday night and is the second major purchase by Stonegate's owner, private equity house TDR, which bought We Buy Any Car owner, BCA Marketplace, for £1.9 billion last month.
Robert Walker, chairman of EI Group, formerly known as Enterprise Inns, said: "The commercial benefits of combining the companies are compelling. Stonegate is committed to continuing to invest in the business for the future benefit of the combined business, tenants and employees. The EIG board believes that this is a combination it can recommend with confidence to shareholders and stakeholders alike."
Ian Payne, chairman of Stonegate, said: "It is an exciting prospect to bring EIG and Stonegate together to create a diversified pubs group with significant industry expertise ... We look forward to working with EIG and its publicans to support future growth and create stronger pubs at the heart of communities across the UK."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article