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B787-FLR

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Fuel costs sink Austrian hopes for 2005
Wednesday March 1, 2006
An ill-timed expansion coupled with a lack of fuel hedges put an end to Austrian Airlines Group's profit hopes for 2005 as the company reported a net loss of €129.1 million ($153 million) compared to income of €43.9 million for 2004.

Although the company did not provide a fourth-quarter result, ATWOnline calculated that the parent of Austrian, Austrian Arrows, Lauda Air and Slovak Airlines lost €59.4 million in the December period compared with income of €37.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2004. "2005 was not a success at all and a big disappointment," outgoing CEO Vagn Soerensen said during the results conference.

Annual operating revenue grew 5.4% to €2.49 billion, driven largely by an 8.3% rise in traffic revenue to €2.26 billion, but operating expenses climbed 13.2% to €2.59 billion, resulting in an operating loss of €100 million versus EBIT of €74.4 million in 2004. EBIT adjusted for profit/loss on asset sales, exchange rate fluctuations and other items swung from a positive €9.3 million to a negative €52 million.

Explaining the lack of fuel hedges, which left the group fully exposed to a 46.6% increase in fuel expense on only a 5.7% growth in production, AUA stated that it would have needed "a significantly stronger capital structure" to employ the hedging instruments available on the market. Also contributing to the rise in operating expense was a 7.6% hike in personnel costs "caused by the expansion in staffing made in anticipation of higher demand."

On the brighter side, the carrier noted that personnel costs per employee actually fell 2.7%, while CFO Thomas Kleibl said AUA was able to reduce net debt from €1.24 billion to €1.05 billion.

Nevertheless, Soerensen said staff cuts are planned. The company also has an efficiency effort dubbed Turnaround In The Turnaround that should produce a positive effect amounting to €100 million from 2007. It expects breakeven adjusted EBIT this year on a 4% rise in ASKs. Passenger boardings grew 7.6% last year to 10.1 million.

by Kurt Hofmann

http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=4200
 
Malaysia Airlines warns of April bankruptcy if cash injection not found

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) warns it will go bankrupt in April if it does not immediately restructure its business and raise cash.

MAS says in its newly unveiled business turnaround plan that “on its current business assumptions, course and speed, MAS will likely fail, running out of cash in April 2006”.

But it says as part of the first phase of its business turnaround plan it already has “taken steps to avert the cash crisis”. This year it plans to raise four billion ringgit ($1.1 billion) in cash through internal and external sources.

“There is no question that MAS is in crisis within the increasingly challenging Asian airline industry. Today we have a cash and profit crisis. On current business assumptions, course and speed, we will surely fail unless we radically change the way we run our business,” says new managing director Idris Jala.

MAS incurred a 1.3 billion ringgit loss for the nine months ending 31 December 2005 and projects a loss of 1.7 billion ringgit for the year ending 31 March 2006. But as part of the three-year turnaround plan, it expects to narrow its losses to 620 million ringgit in fiscal 2006-07, to return to profitability in fiscal 2007-08 and turn a record 400 million ringgit profit in fiscal 2008-09.

“In the course of 2006, the groundwork for launching aggressive cost reduction and network review will be conducted and the impact on the P&L (profit and loss statement) will be realised in 2007 and beyond,” MAS says. MAS’ management team began working on the turnaround plan after Idris took over as managing director on 1 December last year.

“The turnaround plan will not only reverse the loss and return MAS to profitability, but also transform the company into a strong and vibrant institution – one that is capable of withstanding external shocks and aggressively tackling new opportunities,” the carrier says.

But MAS warns it still faces several challenges, include planned capacity increases by other Asian and Middle Eastern carriers which could result in yield declines of up to 7% in core markets. It also faces increased competition from carriers outside the region, in particular from the US, European and Australasia, and new low-cost entrants.

It warns its labour costs are increasing due to higher living costs in Malaysia and its maintenance costs are also rising due to ageing fleets. Overall costs increased by 20% last year and MAS says there are no signs of flattening. MAS says it also suffers from weak pricing and revenue management and low productivity.

“Despite the hard work that has been done to date, it is clear that MAS is not equipped to weather the coming storm. MAS is currently in a much weaker position than our regional peers,” the carrier says.

It declines to disclose precisely how it will implement its turnaround plan. “The key to success is indeed in the execution of this plan and that is our secret,” Idris says.

BRENDAN SOBIE / SINGAPORE
Flight International
 
come ho già detto tante volte IB ha trovato la gallina dall uova d'oro specializzando il suo traffico a lungo raggio e realizzando una corretta rete di federing.

se AZ facesse lo stesso potrebbe ricavare adeguati vantaggi dall'appartenenza a skyteam e ricavarsi il suo posticino....
 
Iberia ha trovato la sua nicchia di mercato nell' America che parla spagnolo, aiutata dalla felice posizione geografica per quel traffico, dal predominio nei viaggi business verso quell' area dei collegamenti con Madrid, dalla corrispondente debolezza delle relazioni America Latina - Gran Bretagna che hanno consigliato a BA di lasciarle campo libero (anche per la quota di IB in mano a BA).

Purtroppo noi dalla storia non ricaviamo traffico con le ex colonie, ma solo acerrime rivalità di campanile, ora di torre di controllo.