Finnair has reported its best ever quarterly operational result that improved to €64.2 million during the third quarter compared to €26.7 million in the year-ago period. Finnair also posted a 2.3% increase in revenue to €637.1 million during the third quarter of 2015. Operational EBITDAR was €115.1 million compared to €80.1million in Q3 2014. Net cash flow from operating activities stood at €62.6 million, and net cash flow from investing activities totalled €-2.8 million. Unit cost at constant currency basis, excluding fuel (CASK excl. fuel), decreased by 0.8% year-on-year. Unit revenue at constant currency (RASK) decreased by 0.6% year-on-year. Ancillary revenue per passenger increased by 29% to €9.79. Earnings per share amounted to €0.29.
For the nine months to September 2015, Finnair’s revenue was on a par with January–September 2014, at €1.738.5bn. The airline’s operational result improved to €22.9 million from a loss of €27.1million in the year-ago period. Operational EBITDAR was €171.7 million. Net cash flow from operating activities was €164.0 million, and net cash flow from investing activities totalled €86.4 million. Unit cost at constant currency excluding fuel (CASK excl. fuel) increased by 0.7% year-on-year. Unit revenue at constant currency (RASK) decreased by 0.6% year-on-year. Earnings per share amounted to €0.13m, while ancillary revenue per passenger increased by 22% to €9.81.
CEO Pekka Vauramo, said: “Finnair’s operational result in its seasonally strongest third quarter reached €64.2 million, which is the best quarterly result Finnair has ever posted. Revenue amounted to €637 million, which represents a year-on-year increase of a good two per cent.
“The factors contributing to this encouraging result include an increased load factor and higher ticket revenue in our core business, passenger traffic, as well as brisk sales of ancillary services. In the Travel Services segment, Aurinkomatkat Suntours’ result improved substantially.
£The profitability of passenger traffic improved year-on-year in all traffic areas except domestic flights, which are still loss-making on several routes. This is something we cannot be satisfied with, and we must adjust our capacity to better correspond with demand.
“The cargo market continues to suffer from overcapacity. With the help of the new cargo terminal that is currently under construction, we aim to improve the efficiency of our cargo operations by increasingly specialising in demanding temperature-controlled cargo services for perishables and pharmaceuticals. These are areas in which we have a competitive advantage, and they also offer better margins.
“The improvement in our result was attributable not only to increased revenue, but also lower costs. We achieved cost savings in areas such as staff costs, and we continued to benefit from the decrease in fuel prices that, due to our hedging policy, is reflected in our costs gradually and with a delay. In fact we expect our fuel costs to decrease in the coming quarters in spite of traffic growth as our old hedges expire. Our result was also boosted by our Asian sales currencies appreciating against the euro.”
Finnair estimates that, in 2015, its operational result is around break-even or slightly positive.