Aegean Group reported a return to profit in 2022 after a 98% revenue increase to €1.34bn compared with the year before.
The surge meant the company exceeded its pre-Covid 2019 revenue by 2%, leaving it with €106.8 million in the black for the year after recording a loss of almost €60 million in 2021.
The 2022 profit was up 36% on 2019 and came after a 73% increase in passengers carried by Aegean Airlines compared with 2021, and as the company reported EBITDA of just short of €275 million.
Over 7 million of the 12.5 million passengers flew internationally, Aegean reported, with the load factor of almost 80% up 14.3 percentage points on 2021 and those international flyers contributing around 80% of revenue.
Capacity for the year worked out at 90% of 2019, based on available seat kilometres, but hit 99% in the fourth quarter (Q4 2022) when revenues were 115% of Q4 2019.
By mid-March 2023, the group had repaid the lockdown-era loans from the main Greek banks, leaving it with "total cash and cash equivalents [of] above €500 million" and net equity back "to pre-pandemic levels".
“We are very pleased that through the joint efforts of our people and the evolution of their capabilities our group has achieved significant profitability, after two years of severe losses during the pandemic, the most difficult period in aviation history," said Dimitris Gerogiannis, the group's chief executive, who claimed the results "validate[d] the effectiveness of our strategy".
Despite the return to profit, the group's board said there would be no dividend pay-out for the fourth year in a row, a move it said was needed in part to keep enough money for the proposed in-house aircraft maintenance facility it announced in December.
The group said the early indications for 2023 are "encouraging", with traffic looking like it would top 2019.
Aegean said it would take delivery of nine new Airbus A320/321neos, part of the order of a total 46 of the aircraft by 2026, as travel demand returns to pre-Covid levels and as it offers 800,000 more seats than in 2019, on 264 routes taking in 161 destinations.