Airlines: Aegean sees return to profitability in 2022

AEGEAN is on track for the first profitable year after the pandemic, in 2022. The recovery of Greek tourism by leaps and bounds creates positive prospects, while every moth after May advance ticket sales are higher than the levels of 2019, confirming the forecasts for this summer. As the managing director of AEGEAN, Mr. Dimitris Gerogiannis, said during today’s regular General Assembly, the positive trends started in April, with the occupancy rates today approaching pre-pandemic levels and passenger traffic moving approximately 10% lower than 2019, while in June the airline moved 1.3 million passengers.

Having started its return to normality in the 2021 summer period, in the third quarter of 2021 AEGEAN recorded organic profitability for the first time. It is noted that 70% of last year’s total sales took place between June and October. Thus, the company managed to recover approximately 65% ​​of passenger traffic on an annual basis, offering 78% of its flight activity (in number of flights) compared to 2019.

A better position than European competitors

Commenting on the result of last year, the president of AEGEAN, Mr. Eftychios Vassilakis, emphasized that, although obviously no one is happy when recording losses, noting that the company had the lowest turnover rate among Europe’s listed airlines, showing that the company is once again dealing with the deep crises at this time with competence and resilience, compared to the competition”.

It is noted that in 2021 pre-tax losses on an organic comparable basis amounted to 72.5 million euros, significantly reduced from the corresponding losses in 2020 amounting to 296.8 million euros.

Improved revenue per flight compared to 2019

For this year, positive trends started to be noted from April, which was also the first month that the airline exceeded the corresponding month of 2019 in receipts. In May, it transported more than 1 million passengers and in June 1.3 million. The significant reduction in the euro/dollar rate has benefitted the firm as costs for leases, spare parts and natural fuels are in dollars. The improvement in revenue per flight will cover some of these increased costs, fueling optimism that 2022 will be the first profitable year for AEGEAN.

Slight delay in new deliveries from Airbus

Over the past year, AEGEAN has accelerated investment in its fleet renewal, both with more aircraft deliveries over the next two years from the large order of new Airbuses, and with the restructuring of the prop fleet, introducing a new type of aircraft into the fleet ( ATR-72) with very competitive lease and maintenance terms. At the same time, it added WiFi to services offered, while it upgraded the business lounge in Thessaloniki and created a new lounge in the extra Schengen area of ​​Athens airport.

The pandemic crisis and its effects on the supply chain, but also the consequences of the new energy crisis, have brought a slight delay to the entire production chain of new aircraft. This obviously also affects delivery times. For this year, a total of 12 new aircraft deliveries are planned. The first 4 aircraft have already arrived, but for the next 4 the delay ranges from 2-3 months. In any case, the gradual improvement of the aircraft mix makes it possible to increase the capacity, an increase which has already started for this summer season.