Expensive jet fuel may drive some start-up airlines to the wall but for easyJet it is not the end of the world, the founder and non-executive director of Europe's second-biggest budget carrier said.

Over 60 short-haul low-cost airlines now battle for customers in Europe, up from seven three years ago, and the stiff competition combined with high fuel costs is putting profits of many of them at risk.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who founded easyJet in 1995, said near-record oil prices seemed to be discouraging new airline ventures and could mean more failures.

"I don't know if it's coincidental but I've noticed fewer and fewer start-ups," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

"With a start-up that is 20 percent away from break-even, the backers may say 'let's put in more money'. With the higher fuel price it might be 30 percent away from break-even, so they might decide not to."

EasyJet's own pre-tax loss widened in the six months to the end of March to GBP