SWISS achieved an operating result of CHF 505.0 million for the first nine months of 2024, an 18.0-per-cent decline on the same period in the record year of 2023. Total revenues for the period amounted to CHF 4.2 billion. The solid nine-month operating result primarily reflects strong demand for tourist travel in summer together with rising costs and challenging business and operating parameters. SWISS further reports an operating result of CHF 240.8 million for the third-quarter period, in which it transported some 5.2 million passengers. Despite yield declines and cost pressures, Switzerland’s leading airline expects to report a favourable earnings result for the full financial year.
Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) achieved an operating result or Adjusted EBIT of CHF 505.0 million for the first nine months of 2024. The result is an 18.0-per-cent decline on the same period in the record year of 2023 (Q1-Q3 2023: CHF 615.9 million). Total revenues for the period were raised 5.7 per cent to CHF 4.2 billion (Q1-Q3 2023: CHF 4.0 billion).
“We continued to benefit from strong demand for tourist destinations and other private travel in the traditionally busy summer months,” says SWISS Chief Financial Officer Dennis Weber. “At the same time, though, we saw rises in our costs, especially on the fees, maintenance and personnel fronts – the last of these as a result of additional new recruitment and recently-agreed salary increases. Despite these challenges, we were able to further build on our solid first-half results, and we are satisfied in business terms with the first nine months of 2024, in which we made the best of still-demanding operating parameters.”
The third-quarter (July-to-September) period is traditionally the busiest and thus the most important for the airline industry. For the 2024 third-quarter period, SWISS achieved an Adjusted EBIT of CHF 240.8 million, 13.3 per cent down from the same period last year (Q3 2023: CHF 277.6 million). Total third-quarter revenues amounted to CHF 1.6 billion, a 5.9-per-cent increase on the prior-year period (Q3 2023: CHF 1.5 billion).
Cargo results boosted by strong Asia business
Once again in the third-quarter period, SWISS’s cargo business made a substantial contribution to overall operating results. The prime driver here was the company’s Asian airfreight business, along with a still-strong e-commerce sector and shortages of seafreight capacities, all of which helped offset the stagnation in the air cargo sector in Europe and the USA.
“Given the increasingly demanding business and operating conditions that air transport is facing, our SWISS team can be proud of these solid earnings results,” says SWISS CEO Jens Fehlinger. “With geopolitical unrest, shortages of European airspace capacities and weather conditions that tangibly hampered flight operations, summer 2024 proved a genuine trial of strength, but one we passed with sound financial success. This is vital, in that it enables us to continue to invest in our people, in our customer experience and in further actions to ensure more sustainable flight operations.”
“We now need to continue to work closely with our partners,” CEO Fehlinger continues, “especially to raise our punctuality and the customer satisfaction that is so closely tied to this. This is an area where we are not yet satisfied. And it’s one we’ll be putting a firm focus on in the coming months.”
Passenger numbers continue to grow
SWISS transported 13.7 million passengers in the first nine months of 2024, a 10.5-per-cent increase on the prior-year period (Q1-Q3 2023: 12.4 million passengers). The company performed over 108,000 flights in the same period, 10.5 per cent more than in 2023. Total systemwide production for the period was raised 11.7 per cent in available seat-kilometre terms. Total traffic volume, measured in revenue passenger-kilometres, was 10.9 per cent up on the prior-year period. Nine-month systemwide seat load factor amounted to 84.5 per cent, a year-on-year decline of some 0.6 percentage points.
In the third quarter of 2024 SWISS carried 5.2 million passengers (Q3 2023: 4.9 million passengers). Some 39,000 flights were performed in the period (Q3 2023: 36,500 flights). Third-quarter systemwide seat load factor stood at 89.1 per cent, a 0.9-percentage-point improvement on the prior-year period.
SWISS’s third-quarter capacity in 2024 was at 98 per cent of its 2019 level.
A good financial year despite fare pressures
The last quarter of the year is the most challenging in seasonal terms, with fewer vacation travellers seen in November and early December in particular. In view of this, earnings results for the period tend to be more heavily dependent on trends in the business travel sector. But business travel volumes remain well below their pre-pandemic levels. “On the plus side, we continued to see strong demand for tourist travel to the Mediterranean between the end of September and mid-October, which is the Swiss autumn holiday period,” says CEO Jens Fehlinger. “And the Christmas holidays will bring a further boost to our business towards year-end. As a result, we are confident of reporting a good financial year. Having said that, fares remain under pressure, especially on the long-haul front, and are lower on average than they were a year ago – at the same time that we are seeing rising costs and fees. So for these and other reasons, despite our continued growth, our full-year results for 2024 are unlikely to emulate last year’s record earnings levels.”
