Icelandair Group hf. (ICEAIR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on this webcast presenting our fourth quarter and full year results at Icelandair for last year, 2024. My name is Bogi Nils Bogason, CEO of Icelandair. And as usual, here with me is Ivar Sigurour Kristinsson, our CFO. And we will run through our presentation. And when we are done with that, we will have a Q&A session. And please send those questions, the e-mail address is ir@icelandair.is. But before we start the presentation, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic incident in Washington, D.C. Our hearts and thoughts at Icelandair go out to the people on board of the aircraft and the helicopter and their families. To the key highlights of last year. During that year, we have had a laser-focus on efficiency and we've seen a positive development in many areas of our operations. On-time performance improved a lot between years where we consistently ranked among the most punctual airlines in Europe. Our unit cost decreased between years, which is a great achievement in a high-inflation environment, and we have not seen many airlines reporting lower unit costs year-on-year. The ONE transformation journey had a positive impact. We are turning every stone within the operations as our goal is to run our business model as efficiently as possible. We transported a record number of passengers of 4.7 million, and our customer ranked us at the top of the Icelandic Customer Satisfaction Index of airlines in Iceland. We continued to expand our partnership portfolio with 5 new airline partners. Additionally, this year -- earlier this year or in this quarter, Icelandair is becoming Southwest's first-ever airline partner, which is a great recognition for Icelandair and our team. Last December, we took delivery of our first Airbus aircraft, a significant milestone in the history of our company. At the end of the year, we moved our offices to the new Icelandair House, where we are consolidating our offices in one place and thereby driving efficiency and alignment at the same time we are decreasing our office space. As you can see and here, it has been a busy year for us and I would like to thank all the 4,000 employees of Icelandair for their great work, and I firmly believe that our company is considerably stronger now than it was a year ago. Looking briefly at the financials, which Ivar will take us through later on, we can see that our full year EBIT was within the guidance we published in October or negative of USD 14.2 million. We can also see that there was a strong turnaround in quarter 4 with $14 million (sic) [ $18 million ] EBIT improvement, and we expect this positive development to continue this year. During the fourth quarter, revenue increased by 10%. Demand was robust in all markets. And we saw a turning point on the market to Iceland after challenging spring and summer. And that turnaround is reflected in higher unit revenues between years and the record load factor in quarter 4. At the same time, our team did a great job in managing cost in inflationary environment. And net loss during the quarter amounted to USD 31 million, an improvement of USD 7 million. And here, you can see the growth in all markets. The 2 markets grew by 6% in the quarter, following a decrease of 9% during the first 9 months. And we see this development continue into this year, which is very important for our revenue generation. With the replacement of the 747 with a new-generation, more fuel-efficient aircraft, we continued to make important steps in our sustainability journey, and our relative CO2 emissions decreased by 11% between quarters. And the turnaround in our Cargo operations is on track where we have adjusted capacity to demand. And the Leasing operations is growing and performing very well. And Ivar, please take us through the financials in more details.

Thank you, Bogi. Let's look a bit at the fourth quarter that we presented -- or yes, we announced yesterday and where, as Bogi mentioned, we reported a positive development in profitability with EBIT improving $18 million between years and -- although being negative by $32 million. Starting with the overall operating income that amounted to $349 million, increasing 10% year-on-year, of which passenger revenue was $277 million, up by $18 million on strong demand across all markets. Cargo revenue, $22 million and was similar as last year. Yields in Cargo improved as did revenue from dedicated or chartered flights that we did while our own freighter capacity, as such, decreased, which impacted the total revenue line, but at the same time improved profitability. Leasing revenue, $31 million, increasing by 60% between years on more production for existing customers as well as from new business that has been gained during the year. We were also successful in securing counter-seasonal projects, resulting in better utilization of our own resources, both aircraft and crew. Other revenue was $19 million, up 18% compared to last year on stronger tourism related revenues. To the operating expenses then. OpEx, excluding depreciation, was $340 million or up by only 3% on more production in the route network and our Leasing business, but partly offset by lower fuel costs. Salaries and related costs were $103 million, decreased 2% compared to last year. We had the average number of full-time employees during the quarter of 3,250 (sic) [ 3,254 ] and that decreased by 9% year-on-year. Contributing factors to that reduction included the outsourcing of the catering service in Keflavik earlier this year, restructuring of our nonproduction units that were executed in May and seasonal layoffs for the low season. Aircraft fuel, $75 million, decreasing 15% year-on-year, and I will talk a little bit about that later. Other aviation expenses, $69 million compared to $60 million last year. The cost of handling landing, navigation costs increased more than the production due to inflation in those cost buckets. Maintenance was $31 million, up by $7 million year-on-year, which was driven by more production in the route network as well as with the Leasing business. Operating expenses -- or other operating expenses, $94 million, up by $15 million year-on-year. Again, increased production explains the difference as well as the outsourcing of the catering services mentioned before, which, at the same time, had a positive impact on salary costs. Depreciation and amortization, $41 million compared to $35 million last year and that is explained by higher depreciation on our own assets as well as leased aircraft assets are increasing as well. Net finance cost, $4 million, and that resulting in a loss before tax of $31 million and net loss of close to $30 million. Aircraft fuel, as explained or said before, $75 million in the quarter, 15% lower absolute costs year-on-year on the 5% capacity increase. Average world fuel price was down 24% in the quarter. And the effective fuel price, including hedges and all other add-ons, was $854 per ton and decreasing 18% year-on-year. And looking forward, we got fuel hedged at around 38% of the projected usage for the next 12 months at an average price of $773. And in comparison, just yesterday, the spot fuel price was close to $740. Unit revenue, good growth in the passenger revenue in the fourth quarter. The unit revenue was $0.076 and increased by 1.5% year-on-year. And again, that was driven by the higher load factor and improving yields on good sales in all markets. And Saga cabin, as has been in the recent quarters, was particularly strong year-on-year. The unit cost, $0.088, decreasing 3% between years. The ex fuel unit cost increasing by 2%, mainly due to increased maintenance and flight-related costs while at the same time strong focus on cost optimization helped mitigate the inflationary pressures, and we saw efficiency improvements across various parts of the business. And factoring in the change in fuel costs, as fuel prices went down, then -- and in addition to continued investment in more fuel-efficient aircraft and good performance of our fuel efficiency program, the overall unit cost reduced 3% year-on-year. And cash flow, strong cash flow from the year. We are ending the year with cash and marketable securities of $255 million at the end of the year on the cash flow. Then net cash from operations was strong at $221 million. CapEx and other investing activities amounted to $132 million. That included the investment in the Icelandair House that Bogi mentioned earlier or the finalizing of that building. And then financing activities, $105 million, that consists of repayment of interest-bearing loans and lease liabilities. And at the end of the year, we had available undrawn committed credit lines of $92 million, bringing the total liquid funds to $347 million at the end of the year. And balance sheet and the development for the year then. Our total asset base was $1.6 billion at the end of the year, increasing by $110 million from the beginning, mainly due to additional aircraft on long-term leases, including 2 MAXs and 1 321LR in addition to other aircraft engine purchases. Total equity, $269 million. Equity ratio at the quarter -- at the end of the quarter was 16.4%. Financial liabilities, $671 million in total, increasing by $32 million from the beginning of the year primarily due to the aircraft-related investments while loans and borrowings were reduced by $45 million for the year. And back to you, Bogi.

Thank you. First to our -- yes, first, regarding sustainability, which is an integral part of our strategy and operations. Icelandair has a significant impact on the Icelandic economy and the society in general. And our continued sustainability efforts are very important for our business, as I said, where we are focusing on environmental, social and governance factors. And as we know, tourism accounts for a significant proportion of the export revenues for Iceland. And Icelandair's tax footprint here in the country amounted to just shy $280 million last year, increasing by 16%. We employed an average of 3,600 full-time equivalent employees, contributing there to the economy here in Iceland as one of the largest employers in the country. Gender equality is another key sustainability focus area for us, and we have set goals of increasing gender quality within management, crew and aircraft maintenance. The proportion of female pilots remained the same between years at 14% , which is one of the highest ratios among airlines worldwide. Male cabin crew members were 16%. And the ratio of women in the executive management and at the director level remained 40%. And as I said earlier, reducing carbon emission is one of our key sustainability priorities from 2019 to 2024. We have reduced our carbon emission per operational ton kilometer by 18%, mainly driven by our fleet renewal program. In 2024, we committed to setting a Science Based climate target and we will start that process this year and update our current targets accordingly. And looking into this year, 2025, we are planning around 8% growth in our passenger network. Our growth will be focused on off-peak seasons and on off-peak hours within the day. This will both improve our resource utilization and offer our customers more travel options than ever before. We will fly to 62 destinations in 2025 and serve 4 new destinations, Nashville, Miami, Istanbul and Gothenburg. And the total capacity on the market to and from Iceland is decreasing a little bit in many months, as you can see on this slide. But looking at our capacity at Icelandair, our growth in the first quarter is mainly stemming from reduction in capacity last year due to the seismic activity. In the second quarter, we are starting the second bank earlier this year due to the Easter in April. That is the reason for the -- mainly the reason for the growth in the second quarter. And we are not growing in the third quarter except in September, where we are extending the operating season of the second bank further into the fall. In September, we will also have our inaugural flight to Istanbul where we are connecting to the extensive hub of our codeshare partner, Turkish Airlines. And Miami is also a new destination in the fall starting in October. And our growth during the winter will be driven by our new and fuel-efficient A321, which will create new opportunities. And by this strategic growth, we are utilizing our resources better and driving down our unit cost. Other carriers are mostly decreasing capacity and that should improve the balance between capacity and demand. Our partnership is also growing. Our partnership team has been extremely busy in further building up our partnership portfolio and thereby increasing travel choices and connectivity for our customers and further strengthening our revenue generation. And with the addition of Southwest, we will increase our coverage within the U.S.A. considerably, which is a very strong position to be in. And then if you look at the outlook for the 2 other business segments. Apart from the passenger network, we have said that last year was a turnaround year for our Cargo operations. After heavy EBIT losses in 2023, our Cargo team did great by reaching the goal of positive EBIT in 2024 and the turnaround was just shy of USD 20 million. This year, the strategy for Cargo is to continue to serve the core markets in the Cargo business and find sustainable and profitable growth opportunities. The outlook for Loftleidir, our leasing arm, continues to be strong. Last year was good and the outlook for this year is even stronger. As lower unit cost in 2024 shows, we have been focusing on improving efficiency to ensure improved profitability. And with that in mind, we initiated a comprehensive transformation journey, as I've already mentioned, in the first half of '24. And that journey has already started to materialize and is depicted in our P&L last year. And the primary objective of the transformation is to increase operational efficiency, mainly by lowering costs but also through revenue generation -- generating initiatives. We are leaving no stones unturned in this journey, and we have put a plan in place that will contribute to reaching our long-term 8% EBIT goal. And by the end of this year, our objective is that the transformation will deliver USD 70 million at an annual run rate with further impact in the following years. And if you sum up the outlook for the year. Internationally, global passenger traffic is expected to grow this year after a record year in '24. There is still a strong demand worldwide. However, there is a continued cost pressure in the supply chain, but with our focus on efficiency and the ONE transformation journey, we can mitigate that. And the balance between capacity and demand on the markets to and from Iceland is improving and it's reflected in our current booking status, which is stronger than at the same time last year. We saw a positive turnaround on the market to Iceland in quarter 4, and we expect that trend to continue into this year. Our growth in capacity, as I said earlier, is around 8%. That growth is very well thought through and supposed to improve resource utilization and drive down unit cost. For example, we are able to grow by 8% by operating the same number of aircraft as last year. And I've already mentioned the strong outlook in the Leasing operations and the continued recovery of the Cargo business. And that brings us to the full year guidance, the financial guidance for this year, 2025. We expect the revenues to be around USD 1.7 billion and EBIT to be in the range of USD 40 million to USD 60 million from negative $40 million last year. As always, the financial guidance is based on current market conditions and assumptions, which are subject to change such as changes in demand, changes in economic conditions such as fuel prices and FX changes. So this is the guidance and that concludes the presentation, but we hope to have questions from the audience.

Yes. Here is one question. Do you anticipate that all 3 segments, the route network, Cargo and Leasing will turn a positive EBIT in 2025?

Yes, that is what we are seeing in our plans that all business segments will return a positive EBIT and improve a little bit between years, all of them. EBIT reached positive EBIT -- Cargo reached a positive EBIT last year, and we are foreseeing further improvement this year. And the operations at Loftleidir continues to be strong, and we firmly believe that the route network will also generate positive EBIT. So yes.

One question regarding the increase in other operating expenses. Customer services expenses amounted to $24.4 million, which is a 53.5% increase year-on-year, and it's even 14% higher than during Q2 '24 where capacity was significantly higher. What's the reason for this increase during the quarter?

Yes. The increase in customer service cost is -- has to do with the outsourcing of the catering services that we did in the second quarter of '24 and that has kind of come into -- or fully materialized after that, and it basically means that salary costs or -- as we outsource the catering service, so prior to that part of the cost related to the catering services was accounted for as salary cost, but now that all comes through the customer service line. But I think we can basically say that we are -- underlying service cost has developed favorably as we look at it on a per-passenger level compared to last year. But yes, this has to do with the outsourcing of the catering services.