A Poor April Hurts Easy-Jet and Others MOVERS MARKETPLACE By Bloomberg

By Tracy Alloway

Shares of the low-fare airlines EasyJet Group and Air Berlin fell Tuesday after the carriers said that they had filled fewer seats in April and that fares might decline. Pressure on yields, or average ticket prices, will continue into midyear because of competition among airlines, the EasyJet chief executive, Andy Harrison, said.

Shares of EasyJet, the second-largest low-fare European airline, fell 48.5 pence, or 7.13 percent, to close at 631.5 pence in London. Shares of Air Berlin, the third-biggest discount carrier in the region, fell 51 euro cents, or 2.37 percent, to close at 19.75 in Frankfurt.

Aer Lingus, Ireland’s second-largest airline after Ryanair – which is also the Continent’s largest discount carrier – said its load factor last month had fallen 4.8 percentage points to 78 percent as the carrier increased capacity. In Dublin, Aer Lingus shares fell 6 cents, or 1.94 percent, to close at 3.04. – Tracy Alloway

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.