Finnair Oyj (FIA1S) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Erkka Salonen from Finnair Investor Relations, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this Q2 2026 Earnings Call. I'm joined by our CEO, Turkka Kuusisto; and our CFO, Pia Aaltonen-Forsell. After the presentation, you may ask questions either by dialing in by using the webcast chat function. You can already send the questions during the presentation. But with these words, I hand it over to you, Turkka. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Erkka, and very good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to this result presentation event. Earlier this morning, we have reported very strong performance during the second quarter of '26, which is kind of a continuation of the two earlier quarters, Q4 2025 being the all-time high Q4 and also strong performance continued during the first quarter. What is kind of especially important to address when it comes to the second quarter performance, in my opinion, is actually rather holistic success in multiple areas. For instance, the revenue growth of 16.4% comes across the all service lines that we have. Passenger revenue grew by some 15%, ancillary sales more than 20% and cargo really did overperform our expectations by 40% growth and also Aurinkomatkat did deliver high single-digit growth. Then when we translate the 16% revenue growth into comparable operating result, which was EUR 78 million. It's very important to address the comparison versus last year. Last year, we reported some EUR 10 million of comparable operating EBIT, but we need to then factor back or add back the cost of the industrial action that we faced last year. Based on our best estimate, the cost of -- or impact of industrial action last year during the second quarter were some EUR 28 million. So if we add that back, operationally, we delivered some EUR 40 million of comparable EBIT. So basically, what happened this year that we were almost capable of doubling the result. Pia will cover the operating cash flow in more detail, but of course, very happy to see close to EUR 200 million operating cash flow, which is, of course, essential when it comes to -- or pivotal when it comes to funding the investment scheme that we have communicated to you as well earlier this year. What is behind the revenue growth is a kind of a complex topic. Of course, the demand in the Asian traffic started very positively already in January, February time frame and was somewhat boosted by after the events that have taken place in Middle East after the escalation of the Iran-U.S. war. Pia will also discuss this in greater detail. But in addition to the Middle East situation, I want to emphasize that we did invest even adding frequencies to our Far East Asia traffic this summer season by flying 28 weekly frequencies between Helsinki and Japan, which again makes Finnair the largest European carrier between Japan and Europe. At the same time, as we will shortly see in the traffic area split, also our demand increased quite a lot in our European traffic area and also kind of the minor decline that we faced in North Atlantic traffic actually turned into a positive development. Again, in Pia's presentation, we will -- slides, we have more details when it comes to the fuel hedging position. But in hindsight, of course, it's easy to acknowledge that the hedging policy of Finnair and the actions Pia and her team have taken have been -- provided us with the stability, predictability and also some capabilities to control the cost position that is the largest in our P&L. We do have a -- we had 82% hedging ratio for the second quarter and for the remaining 6 months, the ratio is 76%. Already in connection with the first slide, one kind of a key highlight when it comes to the implementation of the new strategy. During the second quarter, we have now signed letters of intent to source 6 secondhand Airbus A320 aircraft. And if and when these agreements will be turned into definite agreements, these aircraft will enter our fleet already in 2027. Speaking of customers, I'm very happy to report these numbers. Throughout the last 8 months or so, we have continuously developed the NPS to the positive direction. And throughout Q2, we again scored, in my opinion, a very solid number, 42, which compares to 33 of the peer average. And that's, of course, a consequence of smaller actions, introduction of new digital components, digital elements. But above all, this is the resultant of excellent operational capability, operational excellence that our team has delivered throughout the Q2. For instance, our punctuality has been 99% during the Q2. But then again, of course, the kind of on-time performance is challenged during the summer season because of the congested air traffic control platform in Europe. But all in all, very happy to see these numbers. And when we take a bit of a deep dive into the core customer section of ours, we are capable of reporting actually with higher figures. Then taking the geographical split, we decided to remove the Middle East box. For obvious reasons, we have suspended our flights to Dubai and Doha since late February. Our intention is to restore the flights from Helsinki to Dubai if the safety and security situation allows towards the winter schedule or winter season. Asia, super strong. Revenue grew by 20%. Load factor improved by 6%. We can be extremely satisfied with this development situation. And as already mentioned, Europe also did perform very well in my opinion. We increased the capacity by 8%, whereas the revenue grew double-digit figure and load factors also somewhat developed to the positive direction. As already mentioned, North America or North Atlantic also improved. We did decrease the capacity by some tactical kind of elimination of certain frequencies to improve the load factors and yields consequently. And therefore, again, the revenue grew by some 6%. This is a bit crowded slide, but we also wanted to cover this one with you that, in my opinion, illustrates the very stable market share in Helsinki, at the Helsinki hub, Helsinki Europe traffic pretty much where it has been over the past 2 years. And then Europe to Asia traffic, minor increase in the market share starting from the first quarter of '26, with this both kind of market share graphs gives us a great position to continue the network design and network development when moving forward and also the implementation of the new strategy. Now I would hand it over to Pia for a while to discuss the financials in more detail.

Thank you very much, Turkka, and good afternoon, everybody. It is, of course, a pleasure to present these strong results. So let me start by just an overview of some of the KPIs that Turkka has already mentioned, revenue growing by 16%, resulting in a comparable operating result of EUR 78 million. You can see that, that's really the highest figure that you can see on this chart here for the operating result and then also giving us a very healthy cash flow. And I will dig a little bit deeper now into the components, both of the revenues and the cost. So let me take you there to the next slide. I think these are important metrics to follow. So RASK and CASK, so looking at the revenues per available seat kilometer and also the costs as we are by our strategy in a growth phase. So we want to keep on growing our capacity. And with that then, of course, also having a good look at these key figures. Now this quarter, in particular, on the revenue side, obviously, there was one big external event, which was the war in Iran and the situation in the Middle East that obviously also pushed some of the demand towards other suppliers than the Middle East hubs. And when we are looking at the development of our RASK, obviously, we need to take that into account. We are also stating here that that's a significant contributor to the RASK improvement. And there's also an underlying strong continued demand that I think we saw earlier in the year. I'll give you sort of one fact point of that, that I find important from a Finnish perspective, actually, consumer confidence has for the first time for really many years, actually been growing to be more positive and sort of the willingness to travel also amongst sort of Finnish customers and Finnish consumers has certainly increased. Maybe I can also refer back to the slide that Turkka already presented where we looked at the RASK development a bit also by the regions. And we know that the traffic between Europe and Asia is really important for us and continues to be so and was, of course, impacted by this crisis. And there, we saw RASK increase, let me check the figure, by 16%. So obviously, a big increase. But we also saw RASK increase on North Atlantic, with 14%, and we also saw a good increase in Europe and in domestic 4% to 5%. So we can see that all of our areas have contributed. So I still want to reiterate what Turkka said about the good operational performance, the balanced decisions when it comes to our network, the utilization of the capacity, this sort of holistically contributed to this really strong top line development and good RASK development as well. Now jet fuel and that cost side is certainly on our mind. And I actually have a couple of more slides on that. So I think it's enough to say here that, that certainly has increased from a sort of market cost perspective. Our hedges have certainly protected us a lot. And there are also typically a bit of delays until some of those sort of operational costs of the fuel increase really hit the P&L. So that all also contributed into a somewhat, let's say, delayed impact. And we will discuss the forward-looking hedges in just a little bit. We have also seen some increases in other costs, as you can see here, and it's really personnel costs that have increased predominantly because the number of passengers really grew by more than 7% in this quarter. So sort of Finnair's own production certainly has increased. And I would say the other cost elements are pretty well under control, maintenance, for example, fairly stable, et cetera. Okay. So those were some of the key highlights from the P&L perspective that I wanted to mention. Let me take you through a few topics when it comes to our overall financial position when it comes to our balance sheet. And first, there's a KPI that really also reflects sort of the market and the continued strong, what we might call sort of order intake, but ticket sales and the ticket liabilities that we have in our balance sheet at the moment are at EUR 757 million. That's a really high number. And you can see this sort of level increase that we already saw in Q1, it has been kind of keeping there. So I think it really shows this improved market momentum also compared with the previous year. So this summer season, for sure, we have seen a lot of very healthy sales. Then we have continued our CapEx program, as Turkka has talked about. And I think this is important that we have launched the strategy. We are now working according to that. And you see that the CapEx in the quarter is about EUR 72 million. Probably for the full year, we will go over and beyond the EUR 400 million, which is well aligned with the -- around EUR 2 billion for the strategy period that we have talked about in our strategy. And then finally, our balance sheet strength. I think our financial position is stronger than it has been for a long period of time. If you look at our leverage, it's down to 0.9x at this point in time. And when you look at the development of cash position versus our revenue, it is growing. It's growing steadily even when we are investing. So I think at the point of time where we are today with the uncertainty, that's certainly a very good situation to be. And then talking about the uncertainty, my two last slides will be more focused on the fuel situation. First, we wanted to bring a more holistic view on the fuel situation. Obviously, I know many of you are also following the jet fuel situation in particular. But I still think it's worth noting that kind of through this crisis, obviously, a lot of focus on the Brent and the crude oil and the developments there. And from our perspective, unfortunately, of course, when it comes to jet fuel, the situation has been even more constrained. As we speak today, we have seen 10 days again of continued conflict in the Middle East. And with that, increases in crude oil price, but also increases in the jet fuel price. So really, if we compare with last year, we are at a completely different level and the situation continues from a market perspective to be very constrained. If we then look at Finnair's position, our hedging position kind of confirmed by Turkka really protected us in the second quarter. And I think we were also able to be active in the market of hedges again when the situation calm down a bit. So if we now look at our hedge position at the end of June, I think we have a good protection, 81% to Q3, 71% to Q4. And of course, also with hedges into next year, but of course, on a falling curve. And still also the price levels, the costs there are not exactly the same as they were pre-war, but still on a reasonable level compared with where the market stands today. So this continues to protect us. Also our long-standing relationship with suppliers continues to protect us. We haven't seen any supply or availability issues that would have disturbed our production thus far. These are topics that we will need to continue to monitor. Obviously, it's a very volatile situation as we speak, and we will continue to work the way that we have also worked in Q2, a very tight collaboration here between the operations, of course, the network, the revenue and as well then the risk management and the treasury bit. So we will continue along those lines. But with that said, Turkka, back to you.

Yes. Thank you, Pia. We also wanted to share a short strategy execution update with you. I'm very happy to report that basically all the strategic priorities and initiatives that we have along these 4 categories are progressing pretty much as planned. We've been very active when it comes to the convenience part, the fleet and network strategic priority of ours. As already mentioned, we have now signed letters of intent to source 6 321ceo (sic) [ 320ceo ] generation aircraft from the secondary market to support the growth. And then as already communicated in connection with the Embraer announcement late March, where we will aim at going up to 12 secondhand Airbus 320s towards the end of the strategy cycle. During Q2, we also announced that we will resume flights to Tampere and Turku to support the connectivity for these growth regions of Finland. And as I already mentioned in connection with my opening slide, we have started flight to 12 new destinations in Europe and also reopened or resumed the evergreen Toronto-Helsinki route. And here are some facts related to operational stability and excellence that we also referred to. Flight regularity 99% during the second quarter, and we are continuously introducing AI-powered components to improve the effectiveness and efficiency and customer experience of all the customer-facing processes and channels of ours. Choice-based product offering, again, a few KPIs. The ancillary revenue per passenger grew by 15%, which is a continuation of the double-digit growth that we have delivered over the past 18 months or so. And all in all, when the number of passengers also grew, the total ancillary revenue grew by some 20%. And we continue to analyze the data, customers' preferences to further develop the menu and the variety of ancillaries in our offering. At the same time, we are also investing heavily when it comes to making Finnair Plus loyalty scheme more attractive. I'm very happy to see and report that the number of active Finnair Plus members increased by some 30%. And we did sign some domestically and regionally important Finnair Plus partnerships with some well-known brands and companies. Also something that I wanted to include into this slide is the kind of the cultural and organizational sentiment of Finnair. Last year was very difficult for obvious reasons and very complex CLA processes. But as we speak today, the organizational culture and the sentiment is developing very positively, very strong momentum when it comes to Finnair voice engagement index development. We scored 7.4 in the measurement round that ended mid-June, whereas the figure for end of '25 was 7.0. And then just to recap because there is so much activity ongoing when it comes to our fleet plans. There are one new -- the final 350 coming in during the fourth quarter of this year. And then end of March, we communicated the E2, smaller narrow-body investment scheme consisting of 18 firm orders and then some options and purchase rights. And at the same time, we communicated the intent to acquire reasonably new secondhand Airbus 320s and also some regional aircraft to really support the regional traffic and also the operational stability given the fact that we are flying ATRs and Embraer E1s with such a high utilization rate that we need to have also some spare aircraft. So basically, that was the strategy section. And then going to the outlook and guidance. Outlook is specified and the specification is the capacity growth measured by ASKs. And today, we say that it will grow approximately by 1%. Last time around, we said 3%. And then the guidance is revised. Earlier, we said that the revenue range is EUR 3.3 billion to EUR 3.4 billion. Today, it's EUR 100 million higher from EUR 3.4 billion to EUR 3.5 billion, whereas we will keep the guidance related to comparable operating result as it was last time, given the uncertainty and low visibility and the kind of a geopolitical situation emphasized. So with these words, Erkka, I guess we are ready for the Q&A section.

Indeed. So now would be a convenient time for any questions you may have. So please follow the operator's instructions to present them or write those in the webcast chat.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Joonas Hayha from OP.

I have a couple. Firstly, I'm looking at CASK ex fuel. That growth seems to have been clearly stronger in Q2 versus Q1. So could you please elaborate the key elements and maybe provide some color on the H2 outlook? I think you mentioned the number of the passengers growth in that figure increased costs. But I think if I have my numbers correct, your passenger growth was at a similar level in Q2 versus Q1, but still the CASK ex fuel increased quite a lot. So can you please elaborate this?

Joonas, thanks a lot. And it's a good deep dive question. Obviously, we go directly into some details here. I think, first of all, if I look at sort of the annual growth of the cost, now from memory, I don't have the fact sheet in front of me, but we are talking some annually maybe kind of EUR 20 million level. And if I look at that comparison with a year ago, I mean, clearly, we have increased in terms of our passenger volumes. And with that said, we are also in the peak season. So I mean, this is the season when the level of activity is really high, and we have a higher number of personnel right now. So admittingly, yes, we have also seen some growth earlier in the year, but this is really sort of to cater for that peak season. And please keep in mind as well that this is more maybe marginal, but I'll still mention it as we are also preparing for the CapEx projects, et cetera, there's some costs that we are adding also there, some training, et cetera. I mean we do need to have the right persons then in place for the in-fleeting, et cetera. So if I would look at it sort of from where I stand today, I think out of the increase that I saw sort of year-on-year in the quarter, maybe about half of that really comes just from the fact that we are in the peak season, still increasing our passenger amount. Then there is certainly inflation. If you look at sort of the CLAs and the agreements, et cetera, if I would translate that to millions, maybe it's EUR 4 million, EUR 5 million, something like that sort of inflation bound. And then we had a couple of million extra, what I would call sort of training cost, a bit of catch-up there maybe as well from history. And then we do have a better year, and there is a bit bigger accruals when it comes to STI, et cetera. That's, again, a couple of million. So that's sort of the approximate breakdown I could give for you right now.

All right. And then secondly, cargo yields seem to have jumped significantly in the quarter. Is this mainly a reflection of the reduced market capacity or perhaps fuel surcharges? What's driving the development?

Basically, a combination of the both components you mentioned.

Okay. And then finally, I'm looking at the other income line that came down from Q1. Can you remind us on what kind of changes have you had in the wet lease-front? And is Q2 a good proxy for what should be expected for the second half of the year?

Yes, we need to keep in mind that the wet-lease agreement with Qantas two 330s, that agreement ended end of March this year.

The next question comes from Pasi Vaisanen from Nordea.

This is Pasi from Nordea. Well, firstly, a question related to unflown ticket liability. Here, we have seen a growth of 13%, but is this growth coming from the 13% higher ticket prices? So what could be the unit growth when excluding this price-related effect from the liability?

Thanks, Pasi. Excellent question. I think this must reflect sort of the broader picture of where we have seen both our volumes increasing as well as then increased load factors impacting the RASK. And then finally, as well, market data also shows us that there has been an increase of ticket prices, which is also available in our data. So I still think it's a combined mix of all of those, also in those sort of forward-looking tickets.

Yes. I would agree with Pia, a combination and maybe 1/3 coming from the yield and 2/3 from the number of passengers.

Yes, that's excellent. And then one question related to your investment program. So what could be the annual average capacity increase coming from this EUR 2 billion investment in the strategy period? I know that you have guided roughly about 4% growth in the amount of passengers. But by taking into account that the new planes are narrow planes and, of course, serving kind of shorter routes, I guess the capacity growth then could be below the 4% growth coming from the amount of passengers.

But you're right that the strategy is built on the assumption that 4% growth on annual basis. And of course, it depends to some extent that when do we get the new aircraft into our production and what is the kind of a business mix between or how much we will still utilize wet leases during the so-called transition period. But I guess the optimization exercise that we have ahead of us is to really source the aircraft and also utilize the wet lease capacity so that we can meet the 4% growth ambition.

So that capacity growth could be close to 4% also in this period?

Yes.

Okay. excellent. Maybe just one issue related to fuel costs. So can you give us any color regarding the fuel costs in the second half? So -- because this is probably the biggest black box here and that creating the uncertainty in the estimates and also on your guidance. So for example, when looking at the open position and the fuel costs on the spot market, is there any time lag you are kind of facing 1, 2 days, 1, 2 weeks or 1 month in the spot prices? Or how should we actually try to estimate the fuel cost in the second half?

Pasi, it is indeed an excellent question. And I think, first of all, we try to give a bit of color for that to really give specifically the sensitivity to the fuel price. So if sensitivity, 10% change in the jet fuel price for us would be an EUR 18 million change on result level. And that's taking into account the hedges that we have. And obviously, with sort of the 76% sort of hedge level, I think a critical point to look at is what are the sort of costs that we have locked in already. And then you are right that there are delays from sort of the spot price that you see vis-a-vis when we actually use the fuel, what's actually on the invoice. But that is, to some extent, confidential contractual information. But I think you can observe a little bit the pattern from the early sort of part of the year as well that there's also always some delay in that. But typically, in the market, those delays are not significant. So we are not talking quarters or anything like that.

Yes. And one technical issue related to kind of first spot prices we can see from the markets, for example, from Reuters and Bloomberg. I guess those are wholesale prices in Rotterdam. So are your hedges or hedging prices made for the delivery prices from Porvoo to Helsinki-Vantaa, or are you hedging prices actually to the wholesale prices? Is there, kind of, a 11%, 12% or 14% difference for these prices?

Yes. Maybe I can try to answer this on a little bit more general level. I think there are certain indices that we are sort of typically locking the hedges into and those vary somewhat by market. So you could, for example, have a different index in Asia versus Europe. So indeed, there is some alteration depending on where we actually use the fuel. But it is still based on sort of indices that are available in the market.

Okay. I see. And maybe lastly, regarding the rerouting of those planes from Middle East to other destinations. So is there any flexibility? So is it even possible to kind of start up the Doha, Dubai routes immediately if the airspace is opened? Or have you then kind of 6 months, 3 months lag? How to kind of -- if you are using those planes already and sold those tickets, I guess it's impossible to kind of ramp up this capacity again.

Yes. So basically, what we have communicated very recently that we will not resume Helsinki-Doha anymore. Qatar Airways will start to operate Helsinki-Doha by themselves. We do intend to fly Helsinki-Dubai based on the winter schedule -- winter '26, but only if the safety and security situation allows us to do so. And we do have some flexibility when it comes to then towards the winter season to optimize the frequencies and capacity, let's say, towards the North Atlantic traffic. So if the situation allows reopening Helsinki-Dubai, we are more than capable of doing so.

The next question comes from Jaakko Tyrvainen from SEB.

Could you update us on the -- on your analysis on the jet fuel availability towards the year-end? Is there -- what is the kind of a risk level for possible delivery constraints kind of for Finnair and on the other hand, elsewhere in the European markets?

Based on the current understanding and very thorough and frequent dialogue with our long-term partners, we don't foresee any fuel restrictions or fuel availability issues at Helsinki Airport. And if we face something, let's say, in the Europe, we can fly more than 80% of our short-haul destinations by tankering so that we take enough fuel from Helsinki to fly back and forth. And then when it comes to our global footprint, we do not have any indication that we would face fuel shortages or fuel restrictions by the local, let's say, players and/or government. So from that point of view, as we speak today, we do have a very good visibility and a confident position.

Okay. Good. Then a bit more specific question on the growth in the number of passengers on the European routes. Could you elaborate a bit more in detail? Has this been driven by the international passengers, possibly those who are transferred passengers between Europe and Asia? Or was this predominantly driven by the so-called domestic, i.e., Finnish passengers?

No, I would say that it's a combination of both. We have seen very strong demand from the Finnish passengers to use their discretionary spending to traveling and going abroad. But of course, as the -- especially the Far East Asia or Asian long-haul development has been so positive. It, I guess, goes without saying that all the passengers will not stay in Finland. Actually, quite the opposite. They will continue to Europe, for instance, through our European network. So it's a combination of both. And then, of course, by adding 12 new European destinations, that has also been a successful kind of a contributor to the growth of passenger volumes in Europe.