Aegean cuts pre-tax losses in Q1 on strong growth

Greek carrier Aegean Airlines cut its losses to below pre-pandemic levels for the first three months of 2023, with revenue nearly double last year's figure. Aegean narrowed its pre-tax loss to E18.6m in the traditionally seasonally weak Q1, an improvement on the roughly E48m it lost in the same quarters of both 2022 and 2019. The airline did, however, report positive Q1 EBITDA of E19.3m. Aegean CE Dimitris Gerogiannis says: "We are very pleased with Q1 performance, in the seasonally weakest period of the year, as a result of robust demand but also improved Aegean’s competitiveness in the post-pandemic market.” Notably, Aegean's revenue of E229m was 90% greater than in Q1 2022, and around a third higher than in the same period of 2019. Aegean flew 2.58m passenger in Q1, broadly on a par with 2019 but 72% more than Q1 last year. It saw particularly strong growth on international routes, as markets were impacted by the Omicron variant of Covid-19 during Q1 2022. Aegean doubled its number of international passengers carried year-on-year, to just over 1.5m in Q1. "Once again, we supported the extension of the tourism season in our country with our investment in the capacity offered in Athens and Thessaloniki in Q1 2023, an investment which resulted [in] significant traffic growth,” he says. ”We continue to see strong demand and positive indications for the summer period, which, as always, shapes full-year’s results.” Aegean expects to close 2023 with full-year capacity of 18m available seats, an increase of 2m seats from 2022 and more than in 2019, before the pandemic.<br/>