Morgan Stanley | Capacity growth in long-haul travel poses risks around 2024 pricing power for flag carriers, especially those with exposure to the North Atlantic. However, Conor Dwyer (analyst), notes that rising air freight yields (+25% in December to 1.9x 2019 levels), as a result of disruptions in container shipping, should limit the impact. This dynamic is more favourable for Air France and Lufthansa, more exposed to air freight than...

Banco Sabadell: From the declarations in Bloomberg of IAG’s CEO, Luis Gallego, we highlight: They expect a better summer, although there are still difficulties such as air traffic control in France. In any case, they see very strong demand in Q2 and Q3, with less visibility for Q4. Premium traffic is offsetting the weakness of corporate traffic, which remains at 70% of 2019 levels. On consolidation opportunities, apart from the...

Intermoney | The UK’s airport regulator decided on Wednesday that Heathrow’s airport charges should be lowered because passenger numbers have recovered faster than expected. In 2021, Heathrow was given permission to increase passenger charges for airlines from £19.60 to £30.19 by summer 2022 and the average passenger charge for 2023 is £31.57. This should fall to £25.43 in 2024 and remain flat until the end of 2026. Heathrow wanted charges...

IAG shareholders have given the go-ahead for investment in the renewal of the short-haul fleet, with the acquisition of 50 B737 aircraft from Boeing and 37 A320neo aircraft from Airbus. The transaction was approved at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in Madrid, where only 37.9% of the capital was represented. The CEO of the holding company that includes British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus, Luis Gallego, has ruled out the...

IAG, the airline consortium with Qatari capital, has beat all expectations and clocked up operating profit in the first nine months of the year of 1.2 billion euros. The initial estimate was that the group, led by Luis Gallego as CEO, would maintain earnings at around 800 million euros. So these results mean the company has raised its (operating) profitability by 50% over the forecast. This made IAG the real...

Intermoney | The lack of personnel and strikes are leading to the suspension of over 40,000 operations out of those forecast for Europe over the summer months (25,000 alone between British Airways, Easyjet and Lufthansa). They are also provoking innumerable delays and problems with luggage. The fast increase in demand has been mixed with both the airlines and the airports’ difficulties’ in recovering the volume of their workforces which decreased...