The carrier operated at 80% of full-year 2019 capacity in March, with bookings for summer 2022 "tracking ahead of the same period in full-year 2019".

Over the past week, easyJet flew 94% of its planned schedule – around 1,500 daily flights – which is four times higher than at the same point last year.

This, said easyJet in a half-year trading update issued on Tuesday (12 April), was despite a recent increase in cases of Covid-19 among staff and crew – an issue that has caused delays, disruption and cancellations at airports up and down the country.

"We have proactively managed this in advance by making pre-emptive cancellations as early as possible, enabling the majority of our customers to rebook onto flights departing the same day," said easyJet.

During its second-quarter (three months to 31 March), easyJet flew 67% of full-year 2019 capacity.

Load factor was 78%, impacted – said easyJet – by the impact of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 on "customers’ confidence and ability to travel during the early part of the quarter".

"Load factor has built back during the second quarter as travel restrictions eased across the network," said easyJet. Q2 passenger numbers increased to 11.5 million, up from just 1.2 million in Q2 2021.

"We remain confident in our plans which will see us reaching near 2019 flying levels for this summer and emerge as one of the winners in the recovery," said easyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren.