Brazilian low-cost airline GOL Linhas Aereas swung to a profit in the third quarter of 2025, beating Wall Street expectations.
Profits swung from a net loss of 1.4bn Brazilian reals ($264 million) in last year's third quarter to a profit of 248 million reals ($46.8 million) in this year's.
GOL emerged from its Chapter 11 restructuring in June 2025, moving ahead with its plan to expand its fleet and network.
“Now that we've gone through everything that happened this quarter, all these results prove that GOL is completely positioned to win,” said GOL CEO and president Celso Ferrer during an earnings call.
The airline said it preparing for its “largest summer high season in its history” next year. GOL's third-quarter capacity climbed 8.9%, with international capacity seeing a sharp 34.5% jump on the previous year.
Ferrer said demand was “resilient” with domestic “performing well”. He added that both corporate and leisure travellers were “responding well” to its additional capacity.
The airline's operating result was 850 million reals ($160.5 million), soaring from 3 million reals last year, resulting in its operating margin climbing 15.3 percentage points to 15.4%.
This was supported by an 11.6% increase in revenues, totalling 5.5bn reals ($1.04bn), consisting of 5bn reals ($943 million) passenger revenues, up 12.4%, and ancillary revenue climbing 4.9% to 517 million reals ($97.6 million).
Meanwhile, operating expenses dipped 5.4% to 4.7bn reals ($887 million) — further supporting the operating result.
GOL returned six 787-800NG and one 737-700NG aircraft over the past 12 months, as well as receiving nine 737 MAX 8 aircraft and three 737-800BCF freighters.
“This fleet movement, combined with the ongoing fleet recovery programme, resulted in a net addition of 13 aircraft to the operating fleet compared to 3Q24, reaffirming the company’s strategy to have its entire fleet fully operational by the end of 1Q26,” GOL said in its earnings report.
For the full year, GOL expects an EBITDA of between 5.8bn and 6.1bn reals ($5.8bn and $6.1bn), with its net leverage in the range of between 3.4x and 3.6x.
Ferrer said the “favourable environment” was supporting this accelerated leverage reduction. Post-emergence, the company was targeting a net leverage of 3.5x by 2027.
Despite the airline seemingly accelerating the capture of this leverage target, Ferrer said the target for 2027 remains unchanged.
As of the end of September, the airline's fully Boeing 737 narrowbody fleet totalled 143 jets — including 58 737 MAX 8s, 64 737-800NGs, 12 737-700NGs, and nine 737-800BCFs. The fleet is 97% financed through operating leases and 3% via finance lease.
As of the end of the quarter, the company's liquidity reached 5.4bn reals ($1.02bn), while net debt was 19.7bn reals ($3.72bn). Net debt to EBITDA was 3.2x — down from 5.3x a year prior.