earnings and earnings with tailwind until September
IAG Group, which includes Iberia, British Airways, Vueling, Level and Aer Lingusmaintains the course for good results. IN in nine months, from January to September, earned 2.340 million euros8.8% compared to 2.151 million a year earlier, due to increased passenger traffic. The prospects for 2024 are as follows. demand continues and capacity increases by 5%which will mean that the group will end the year maintaining its trend of positive results.
Based on third quarter reporting, IAG ifrom January to September earned 24,053 million euros7.9% compared to the same months last year.
The group carried almost 93 million passengers, up 6.2% from a year earlier, with a seat occupancy rate of 86.8%, up almost one point from last year.
Luis Gallego, CEO of IAG, expressed satisfaction with the company’s development in the first nine months of the year: “very solid financial results in the third quarter of 2024, increased profits from
operation by 15.4% compared to the same period of the previous year and improving our profitability, which reached 21.6%.”
Luis Gallego, CEO of IAG. Source: IAG
After long-haul and low-cost airline Level, Iberia recorded the group’s best result with 19.6 million passengers, up 9%, with revenue per ticket up 9.8%.
Operating profit rose to €3,322 million, up 10.5% from a year earlier, while operating margin increased by three-tenths to 13.8% in the first three quarters.
Demand remains strong in all the group’s main markets, so passenger revenues increased by 9.2% to €21,313 million.
IAG’s strengths remain in the North Atlantic.
The North Atlantic region remains one of IAG’s key strengths. The group increased its capacity in the region by 3.9% in the quarter, and passenger revenue increased by 3.5%. In this context income
Sales of British Airways divisions were particularly strongwhile Aer Lingus suffered from the negative effects of the pilots’ strike and the capacity increases of its competitors in Dublin.
IAG’s strong performance is supported by growth in passenger traffic and its operations in both the North Atlantic and Latin America. Source: IAG
And in Latin America
IAG is also investing in structural growth market in Latin America, in particular through Iberia and LEVEL. Capacity growth remained strong at 10.7% in the quarter as Iberia in particular continued to increase flights to its core cities, although unit passenger revenues were down 2.8% as strong underlying demand dampened the impact of capacity growth capabilities.
Good performance of Spanish airlines
According to IAG, strong customer demand continued to be seen on the intra-European network, where capacity increased by 5.3% in the quarter and passenger revenue increased by 1.4%. All short-haul airlines performed well andn in terms of demand and revenue across Europe during the quarter.
Capacity in the domestic region (Spain and UK) grew by 4.1% in the third quarter, with good results in
especially short-haul airlines Vueling and Iberia Express.
Outlook for the rest of the year
For the latest quarter, IAG is forecasting a capacity increase of around 5%, bringing the full year to 6%, with some impact from disruptions and aircraft availability across the group.
investments in fixed assets in 2024 will amount to about 3.1 billion eurosAt the same time, 20 aircraft were delivered during the year, four of them in the fourth quarter. Among them there are A321XLR that Iberia will debut and by the end of the year will receive two more devices, which will go to Aer Lingus.
Taking into account the 76% coverage the group has in the fourth quarter, total fuel costs for the full year are expected to be around €7.7 billion, based on forward jet fuel prices to 7 November 2024. In the long term. IAG forecasts “positive and resilient travel demand” and, according to Luis Gallego, “a strong final quarter of 2024 from a financial perspective.”
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