Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia owner IAG has upped its profit outlook for this year on the back of strong passenger demand across all of its airlines.
The group also owns Spanish carriers Vueling and Air Europa.
While not breaking out individual airline figures, IAG said it significantly improved its financial performance in the first quarter of this year.
Its figures show it generated group revenues of €5.9bn for the three months to the end of March, compared to revenues of €3.4bn for the first three months of 2022.
While still loss making in the quarter, IAG’s first quarter losses shrank considerably – down from €787m in the first three months of 2022 to just €87m in comparison for this year’s first quarter.
IAG said it is seeing strong customer demand across all of its airlines, at present, and in all regions – particularly for leisure customers. It expects capacity, for this full year, to be near 97% of pre-Covid 2019 levels.
In a statement, IAG said: “Taking the above into account, together with the quarter 1 performance, we currently expect our full year 2023 operating profit before exceptional items to be higher than the top end of our previous guidance of €1.8 billion to €2.3 billion. We also expect our net debt at December 31, 2023 to be better than previous guidance of materially flat year on year, and to be down in line with our profit outperformance.”
Iberia returned to profit in the first quarter, enjoying its best first quarter ever. British Airways returned to a first quarter profit for the first time since 2019.
IAG said Aer Lingus is more seasonally exposed than its other airlines, but is seeing good demand to European leisure destinations as well as to the US and the Caribbean.
