The Icelandic carrier PLAY has reported a load factor of 79.2% for the month of June, transporting nearly 88,000 people, up 55% from May this year.
The load factor in June has been seen as significant when considering the carrier is still building up its route network from Iceland and new routes to New York, Palma, Bologna and Madrid were commenced. The airline's on-time performance for the month was just 79.1%, however, this reflects reasonably well considering the mass disruption seen at many European airports over the month.
Just like most other airlines, PLAY has experienced delays in its schedule and suffered from costs associated with these delays. This cost is already built into the company’s business plan and is in line with expectations and the norm in the industry.
During this year’s first quarter, PLAY began implementing the company’s fuel hedging policy. PLAY´s first step was a cautious one, with the next step now underway as PLAY has decided to further increase its fuel hedging. With this increase, PLAY is hedging 30% of estimated fuel consumption for the next three months, i.e., July to September, and 15% of estimated fuel consumption for the subsequent four to six months, i.e., October to December, over the next four to six months.
PLAY’s sixth aircraft, an Airbus A320neo, arrived in Iceland at the end of June and recently began flying passengers within the network. PLAY is now operating three Airbus A321neo and three Airbus A320neo aircraft. These aircraft are now flying passengers to PLAY’s 25 destinations in the U.S. and Europe.
Birgir Jónsson, PLAY’s CEO said: “June is another landmark month for us as it is the first month when we operate our full hub-and-spoke network using six aircraft."
Jónsson continued: "It’s great to see that our unit costs reduce dramatically once we have reached this scale in our operation. As previously communicated in our guidance, we have now reached our initial target of unit cost per available seat kilometre (CASK) excluding fuel and emissions being lower than four U.S. cents. This is very important for us as we aim to offer the lowest fares in our markets, and a low-cost base is critical to achieving that. This also shows the underlying efficiency of our business model and is an encouragement to us as we strive to lower our costs even further as PLAY grows. European aviation is having a hard time ramping up its capacity, and there are delays and complications everywhere. In light of that, I am especially proud of my colleagues in our flight operations, technical teams, crew members and service specialists, as they have done a fantastic job in handling our expansion during this difficult time, achieving very satisfactory punctuality considering the situation at most airports and the fact that we are building a brand-new network. I send my sincere thanks to them and the entire PLAY team for their hard work and dedication,”.
