Today, AEGEAN announced the airline’s second-quarter 2020 financial results. According to the report, COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges for the airline sector, especially in the second quarter for all Europe. Travel restrictions and local shutdowns imposed by governments during the period caused the cessation of effectively all of the Company’s flight activity.
AEGEAN’s news tells of the total number of flights operated falling by 82% in the quarter (with a reduction of 95% and 92% for the months of April and May respectively), while passenger traffic fell 92%.
Also in the report, consolidated revenue for the second quarter stood at just €40.4m, 88% down compared to the second quarter of 2019, i.e. a decline in revenue of €307m. Pre-tax losses (excluding extraordinary) stood at €58.7m against pretax profit of €31.5m in the respective 2019 period.
As a result, the overall first half 2020 consolidated revenue fell by 64% to €187.4m while underlying pre-tax losses stood at €132.3m. The results were burdened by extraordinary losses of €68.5m from ineffective hedging, mainly due to the large portion of fuel hedging contracts for the duration of 2020 being rendered ineffective by the significant reduction in flight activity. Net losses after tax stood at €158.8m in the first half compared to losses of €13m in the respective period last year. Dimitris Gerogiannis, CEO of AEGEAN had this to add via the release:
“Looking forward, our industry and our Company are faced with the most challenging and least predictable winter ever. We will continue our daily effort to adjust to the new travel requirements of our passengers, to further extend our “crisis endurance runway” and to develop effective and flexible alternative scenarios for our product and network for 2021.”
Mr. Gerogianni also pointed out that the last few months have been a period of almost constant strife and dynamism, a period with required resilience and efforts to develop a viable future for the company. He said that the pandemic presents the most difficult problems the airline industry has ever faced.
Readers can view the original press release here.