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| Aegean |
The Greek airline Aegean has announced its 2018 9-month results this week which showed the carrier managed to achieve a consolidated revenue at €939.3m, 5% higher than 2017 during a difficult trading period. The airline's pre-tax earnings rose 14% to €115.8m and net earnings after tax were up 13% to €80.9m.
During the 9-month period to September 30, 2018, AEGEAN and its subsidiary Olympic Air, carried 10.8m passengers, 6% more than the previous year, with 4.8m in domestic and 6m in the international network. Total passengers from/to Athens hub travelling on international routes increased by 12%. Load factor improved to 83.6% from 82.9% in 2017 as a result of efficient revenue and network management.
During the third quarter, revenue increased to €483.6m, 9% up compared to 2017. Pre-tax earnings increased by 4% to €134.1m while net earnings were 3% higher compared to last year at €94.7m, despite the significant rise of fuel costs which stood at 27% for the quarter even after the effect of hedging.
Operating cash flow reached €161.8m resulting to cash and cash equivalents and financial investments rising to €389.9m1 as of 30.09.2018, following the payment of €34m in pre-delivery payments to Airbus.
Mr Dimitris Gerogiannis, Managing Director, commented: “We have once again delivered strong profitability in the summer season, through developing our Athens hub but equally through new products and services which add value to our passengers. Our result was achieved despite the presence of new competitors with significant additional capacity in both domestic and international network as well as the effect of rising oil prices. We have followed a prudent and focused capacity development strategy for a second consecutive year. We focus on developing the right skills sets and infrastructure so as to ensure the efficient use of our new fleet investment which is critical for our future capabilities.”
