SATA Azores Airlines made a loss of 25.6 million euros in the first quarter, compared to a loss of 22.7 million euros in the same period last year, while SATA Açores improved its losses to 4.7 million euros.
According to the group’s official source, SATA Açores made a loss of “4.7 million euros”. This result represents an improvement of 2.3 million euros compared to the same period in 2023, “mainly due to better operating results and the reduction in financing costs as a result of the early settlement of the 60 million euro bond loan in September 2023,” the company said in a statement.
A press release states that in the first quarter, the airlines of the SATA Group, Sata Internacional – Azores Airlines (Azores Airlines) and SATA Air Açores – Sociedade Açoriana de Transportes Aéreos (SATA Air Açores) “continued their trajectory of passenger and revenue growth, despite the first quarter always being more challenging for airlines, having reached 447 thousand passengers transported (+21% compared to the first quarter of 2023)”.
Revenues for the two airlines amounted to 68.9 million euros, up 24% on the same period in 2023.
Costs also grew compared to the previous year, with a significant impact on the costs of irregularities and ACMIs (aircraft rental) due to adverse weather conditions and constraints related to aircraft maintenance and breakdowns, they say.
Azores Airlines – in the process of being privatized – carried 286,000 passengers, up 29%, and achieved total revenue of 47.1 million euros, which represents an increase of 31.5% compared to the same period last year, “despite the fact that, as a rule, the first quarter for airlines is the worst of the year (…), proving the trend of strong growth in the company’s activity, based on increased capacity on ‘core’ routes, more connections and the introduction of new routes”, it reads.
The number of flights operated by Azores Airlines amounted to 2,095, representing an increase of 18% and 65% compared to 2023 and 2019, respectively.
Operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) “evolved positively compared to 2023 and 2022, despite being negative by 8.5 million euros, with the significant increase in irregularity costs (largely due to adverse weather conditions, but also due to the extremely restrictive Company Agreements) and ACMI contributing to this result.”
The company says that excluding the increase in these costs compared to 2023 (1.5 million euros), EBITDA would have amounted to a negative seven million euros.
Operating costs rose 24.6% to 55.6 million euros, “strongly impacted by the growth in irregularities (+116.6%; +1.1 million euros), ACMIs (+112.3%; +0.4 million euros), commissions/GDS (+79%; 2.7 million euros), handling (+52.6%; 2.1 million euros) and maintenance (+45.2%; 1.2 million euros),” they explain.
Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) also showed “a deterioration of 1.9 million euros”.
For its part, SATA Air Açores carried a total of 162,000 passengers in the first quarter, 8.9% more than in the same period of the previous year, with total revenue growing 10.5% to 21.7 million euros.
EBITDA improved by 0.4 million euros to -0.8 million euros.
The airline operated 3,210 flights (+67 flights, +2.1% compared to 2023) and carried 162,000 passengers, an increase of 8.9%.
Total revenues amounted to 21.7 million euros, up 10.5% on the same period last year.
EBIT improved by 0.5 million to negative 3.4 million euros.
As for operating costs, “there was a more significant increase” in commercial costs (+27%), maintenance costs (+9%) and personnel costs (+8%).
It should be noted that the management of the SATA Group recommended last week “not to proceed with the current privatization tender”, a position that the Civil Aviation Pilots Union (SPAC) welcomed on Monday.
