Budget airline easyJet has made a strong start to the year, but it hasn't all been plane sailing.

Total revenue in the first quarter to 31st December 2018 increased by 13.7 per cent to £1,296 million. Passenger revenue increased by 12.2 per cent to £1,025 million.

Passenger numbers in the quarter increased by 15.1 per cent to 21.6 million, driven by an increase in capacity of 18.2 per cent to 24.1 million seats

While the company said sales and customer demand were in line with expectations, this was affected by the drone problems at Gatwick airport over Christmas.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet chief executive, said: "There has been be a one-off cost impact from this incident, but underlying cost progress is in line with expectations. I am proud of the way our teams worked around the clock to mitigate the impact of the incident and looked after affected customers."

The drone issues affected around 82,000 customers and led to over 400 flights being cancelled, at a cost of £5 million. There was an additional £10 million cost to the company in customer welfare costs.

Despite this, the outlook for 2019 looks positive.

Johan Lundgren said: "For the first half of 2019, booking levels currently remain encouraging despite the lack of certainty around Brexit for our customers. Second half bookings continue to be ahead of last year and our expectations for the full year headline profit before tax are broadly in line with current market expectations."