From January to the end of September, SWISS recorded a turnover up sharply by 26.4% over one year to 4.0 billion Swiss francs. THE Operating profit more than doubled (+114%) to reach 615.9 million.
In more than twenty years of history, SWISS, the Swiss subsidiary of the German Lufthansa group, has recorded its strongest operating profit over nine months. SWISS transported nearly 12.4 million passengers, about a third more than in the same period of 2022. Its planes carried out more than 97,000 flights, a quarter more than the previous year. Across its entire network, capacity (expressed in available seat kilometers – ASK) increased by 33% during the first nine months of 2023. Traffic (expressed in passenger kilometers carried – PKT) simultaneously increased by 42%. The seat load factor averaged 85.1%, 5.4 percentage points higher than the previous year.
“ In the third quarter, we also benefited from demand for air travel exceeding supply across the industry. We also took advantage of our cost structures which have become more competitive since the restructuring caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Our administrative costs, for example, remain below their pre-crisis level said Markus Binkert, Managing Director of Finance at SWISS.
From July to September, the Swiss airline increased its operating profit by a quarter compared to the previous year to almost 277.6 million francs (220.5 million francs in 2022), thus achieving the strongest quarterly result in its history. Operating income increased by around 10.6% to reach 1.5 billion francs (1.3 billion francs in 2022).
Third trimester
From July to September, SWISS transported almost 4.9 million passengers (compared to 4 million in the same period of 2022) and carried out more than 36,500 flights (compared to around 31,000 in the third quarter of 2022). The average load factor, reaching 88.2%, is 1.3 points lower than the previous year. In total, it offered 89% of 2019 capacity in the third quarter.
SWISS is currently seeing a normalization of average revenues. At the same time, the sector is facing rising costs, particularly energy costs. The market environment will therefore become more complex in the medium term. SWISS nevertheless expects a very good result for the whole of 2023.
