Icelandair’s international passengers up 2% in 2018; bullish on future

Icelandair said it carried 4.1m international passengers in 2018, a 2% increase over the previous year, a record for the Iceland flag carrier. As a result, the airline is confident its “strong liquidity position” at the end of last year will enable it to seize any “opportunities that may arise,” Icelandair CEO Bogi Nils Bogason said. His assertion follows Icelandair’s decision in November 2018 to abandon plans unveiled earlier that month to acquire Icelandic budget operator WOW Air and suggests the airline could be in the market for other consolidation opportunities. The airline increased international capacity, measured in ASKs, by 7% in 2018, outstripping the 4% increase in RPK traffic. This resulted in a 1.7 percentage point drop in load factor to 81%. Conversely, passenger numbers on Icelandair’s domestic and regional services dropped 9% to 319, 238 in 2018 as the carrier slashed capacity on these routes by 16%.<br/>