Air Berlin PLC & Co Luftverkehrs KG
EANS-News: Air Berlin PLC
A positive start to 2012 for airberlin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate news transmitted by euro adhoc. The issuer/originator is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Figures/Balance Sheet/3-months report/Q1 figures 2012 Subtitle: According to CEO Hartmut Mehdorn: Efficiency programme Shape & Size is clearly producing results Higher sales figures, greater utilisation of capacity, improved net result Better figures despite fuel surcharges and increase in aviation tax Berlin (euro adhoc) - Germany's second largest airline can draw positive conclusions from its first quarter of 2012. On presenting airberlin's interim report, CEO Hartmut Mehdorn announced: "Although it's too early to celebrate, we can clearly see our Shape & Size programme beginning to produce results - we're starting to step up our efficiency and reap the benefit of lower costs ahead of our competition. And as a result, nearly all the indicators of significance for our business are pointing in the right direction." Despite systematically reducing capacity by 10.5%, it has been possible to increase sales figures in the traditionally hardest quarter for the German airline industry by 4% to 812.9 million euros (781.6 million euros) compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Capacity utilisation went up by 3.9 percentage points to 76.4% (72.5%). These are the best results recorded for the first quarter since airberlin was listed on the stock exchange. Yield (income per passenger) rose by 7.3% to 109.8 euros (102.4 euros). EBITDAR (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortisation and Rent) improved by 128% to 7.2 million euros (-25.7 euros), EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) went up 20.7% to -149.3 million euros ( 188.3 million euros), and net loss went down by 14.6% to -102.9 million euros (-120.6 million euros). "Although costs for fuel have gone up to 35.2 million euros and for aviation tax to 4.2 million euros, we've managed to improve EBIT by nearly 40 million euros", announced airberlin CFO Ulf Hüttmeyer. The following conclusions can clearly be drawn from this: Everyone in the company has understood that our efficiency programme is the number one task for management. Despite systematically reducing capacity by more than 10%, passenger numbers have only gone down by 5.8% to 6.5 million. As Hüttmeyer explains: "Our results show that the number of passengers on its own bears almost no relevance to profitability - it's much more important to ensure that capacity on our aircraft is fully utilised." Mehdorn again called for aviation tax to be abolished: "It puts German airlines at an unfair disadvantage in an international arena that is already difficult." airberlin is Germany's second largest airline. The company has a workforce of 9,200 employees. Each year, airberlin receives over 10 awards for service and quality. The fleet comprises 170 aircraft with an average age of five years, making it one of the most modern fleets in Europe. The airline's state-of-the-art jets are highly fuel efficient, which contributes toward a long-term reduction in pollution emissions from aircraft. As one of the major European airlines, airberlin flies to 162 destinations in 40 countries. In 2011, over 35 million passengers were transported. In December 2011, airberlin entered into a strategic partnership with Etihad Airways. Since 20th March 2012, airberlin has been a full member of the global airline alliance oneworld®. airberlin operates codeshare flights with oneworld members American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and Japan Airlines. Further inquiry note: Uwe Berlinghoff Senior Vice President Communications phone: + 49 30 3434 1500 fax: + 49 30 3434 1509 email: abpresse@airberlin.com end of announcement euro adhoc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- company: Air Berlin PLC The Hour House, High Street 32 UK-WD3 1ER Rickmansworth, Herts phone: +49 (0)30 3434 1500 FAX: +49 (0)30/3434-1509 mail: abpresse@airberlin.com WWW: http://www.airberlin.com sector: Air Transport ISIN: GB00B128C026 indexes: SDAX, Classic All Share, Prime All Share stockmarkets: free trade: Berlin, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, regulated dealing/prime standard: Frankfurt language: English