THE UK’s biggest budget airline has said it is ready to ramp up services as it banks on international borders opening in time for the summer holiday season.

Revealing that it lost nearly £4 million per day over the winter trading period, easyJet said it is closely monitoring the situation across Europe, where its core markets lie. The carrier is planning to fly about 20 per cent of its normal schedule between April and June, with capacity levels increasing from late May as chief executive Johan Lundgren said there “can be a strong summer” season this year.

“We have the operational flexibility to rapidly increase flying and add destinations to match demand,” he said. “EasyJet is ready to resume flying, prepared for the ramp up and looking forward to being able to reunite people with their families or take them on leisure or business flights once again.”

The company said in its latest trading update that it lost somewhere between £690-£730 million during the six months to the end of March as surging cases of coronavirus led to border closures across Europe and grounded most of its fleet. Winter capacity fell by 86% and passenger numbers dropped by 89% to just 4.1 million people.

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The financial forecast for the first half was slightly better than analysts’ expectations. The improvement was attributed to the cautious approach easyJet took on rebuilding capacity throughout the winter, which allowed it to keep costs down.

Shares in easyJet closed nearly 6% higher yesterday as investors shared the airline’s optimism about the upcoming return of international travel. The company said it was encouraged by the speed of the vaccination rollout in the UK, while it expects the European programme to pick up pace in the coming weeks.

At present easyJet is not allowed to fly leisure passengers from the UK, though the UK government has indicated that ban will be lifted on May 17. This will give way to a traffic light system that will dictate whether travellers need to take Covid tests and whether they will be required to quarantine after they return home.

Mr Lundgren said he expected most European countries to be on the UK’s “green list” of lowest-risk destinations that would not require quarantine but will require travellers to pay for more expensive “gold standard” PCR tests before departure and on arrival back in the UK.

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Destinations will be assessed on their vaccination levels and the prevalence of new Covid-19 variants. On those metrics, countries such as the US, Israel and Dubai would currently be most likely to attain green list status.

Mr Lundgren warned last month that that the high cost of PCR tests, which typically run at £150 or more per person, could exceed the cost of a standard easyJet ticket and make it difficult for some travellers to leave the country. The airline is in continuing discussions with the Government on ways of bringing down those costs.

“EasyJet was founded to make travel accessible for all so we continue to engage with Government to ensure that the cost of the required testing is driven down so that it doesn’t risk turning back the clock and make travel too costly for come,” he said yesterday.

Group revenue for the six months to the end of March fell by 90% to £235m, with passenger revenue down 91% at £165m and ancillary revenue from optional “extras” such as increased leg room seating down 87% to £70m. The company said its new cabin bag policy, which sharply reduced the cabin baggage allowance, is “on track to our revenue expectations” since its introduction in February.

EasyJet has raised £5.5 billion since the start of the pandemic, including £1.4bn from the sale and leaseback of aircraft and other assets. As of the end of March, it retained £2.9bn of those funds.

Shares in easyJet closed yesterday’s trading 54p higher at 978p.