Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad to welcome you jointly with the management and the Senior Independent Director of the board of IAG, Patrick Cescau. Welcome to the IAG results presentation 2018. I'm really glad another year to be here reporting quite a good result. Despite of the headwinds of fuel price up by 30%, the worst air traffic control environment in Europe in the recent history, and the impact of FX, a change in our result, EUR 129 million. Despite of all these headwinds, we have been able to report EUR 3.230 billion operating profit, which is 9.5% up versus last year, and with an increase in our adjusted EPS of 15.1%.
Based on those airlines that have reported so far, we are the only major airline group on either side of Atlantic to have reported a higher operating profit and a higher margin on 2018 compared to 2017. The management team, led by Willie, deserve a very deep and very strong recognition. As far as the shareholder return is concerned, at the result presentation of the third quarter 2018, we announced an interim dividend of EUR 0.145 per share. I'm pleased to announce right now that the Board of Directors has recommended a final dividend of EUR 0.165 per share. This makes a total dividend for 2018 of EUR 0.31 per share, which is 15% higher than for 2017, and it is in line with the increase with EPS growth. This demonstrate the Board of Directors confidence in IAG financial strength, IAG strategy, and the outlook.
I'm also pleased that the Board yesterday approved a special dividend of EUR 0.35 per share of approximately EUR 700 million of additional return to shareholders. Total cash return to shareholders in respect to 2018 will therefore be just over EUR 1.3 billion, which will be around EUR 260 million more than previous years. Including this final special dividend, we will have returned a total of almost EUR 3.8 billion since 2015. We're glad with this figure and looking forward to continue returning our shareholders. I hand over to the management led by Willie.
Thank you, Antonio, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. I have to say, as you would expect, I'm very pleased with the performance of the group in 2018, not just from a financial point of view, but clearly making good progress on our strategic objectives as well. We've continued to invest in our brands and our customer proposition, strengthening the brands and our network. You've seen the expansion of LEVEL at Barcelona and the launch of LEVEL at Paris, and then exploiting the LEVEL brand to launch a short-haul operation at Vienna, and we'll do more of that in 2019. We've seen a very significant improvement in the British Airways Net Promoter Score, and in fact, very strong Net Promoter Score for all of our airlines, with the exception of Vueling.
As you know, Vueling was disproportionately impacted by the air traffic control environment in Europe in 2018. Not only were they hit by the en route ATC delays, but Barcelona was one of the most impacted airports on the European network. We operate about 201 flights, I think, in 2018 from Barcelona. 19% of all flights in Barcelona were delayed by ATC, and the average delay on flights operating out of Barcelona was roughly 19 minutes. That's across the whole airport. When you consider the business model that Vueling has similar to other low-cost airlines, where quick turnaround times are a feature of the business, what the delay statistics don't show you is that a lot of the problems were caused not just by ATC, but the reaction to those ATC delays, which are not embedded in the ATC statistics.
If they delay the flight on the outbound leg and the flight remains delayed on the return leg, they don't count the return as being an ATC delay. That clearly had a big impact on the Vueling NPS. We've taken measures to try and counteract what we believe will be a difficult ATC environment in 2019, and I'll talk about that again later on. In terms of our leadership position across our network, I know some of you last year expressed concerns about our growth plans. We had announced this time last year that we were planning to increase ASK by 6.7%. We actually finished the year with 6.1, doing what we said we would do, which was to look to trim capacity as we went through the year.
I think that capacity has been justified, particularly when you look at our unit revenue performance, which showed at constant currency, a 2.4% improvement versus last year. We had 8% capacity growth on the transatlantic. It represents 30% of our capacity across the network. In Latin America, which is about 16.5% of our capacity, 9%. The Latin American market was a bit more challenging than I think we probably expected, given the devaluation in Argentina and the economic environment in Brazil. I think our assessment now is that has bottomed out. It's an important part of our network. As I said, about 16.5% of total capacity, but over 50% of the Iberia capacity. We had 7% growth on our intra-European. Most of that was in Spain. As you know, Europe represents about 26% of our capacity. We grew at Gatwick.
This was principally through the acquisition of the Monarch slots, but also through the densification of the aircraft. Going back to what I said about ATC, most of the capacity reductions that we had were with Vueling, where we cut their growth ambition because of the ATC environment. The transatlantic performed very well. New routes by Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, and LEVEL. The Aer Lingus performance continues to be very strong. Very pleased with both Philadelphia and Seattle has been a fantastic success. Then in relation to what we call the platform, we continue to improve our non-fuel unit cost down 0.8%, down over 11% since we created IAG. We continue to take new aircraft, 25 aircraft delivered in 2018. More to be delivered in 2019 and beyond. Distribution, what we call NDC or new distribution capability API, now represents about 17% of total indirect sales.
The way to look at that is that although those sales are indirect, they are effectively at the same cost as our direct distribution. U.K., with Avios, we merged the British Airways programs. We continue to see good work from our digital teams looking to exploit new technology. That has been clearly something that has not just improved our cost performance, but also improves our operational and customer performance. Now just focusing on the high-level financials, Enrique is going to go through these in detail. Return on invested capital 16.6% above our target. Adjusted margin 14.4%. Equity-free cash flow, 2018 was a higher than average CapEx year, therefore lower than average equity-free cash flow. Still very strong at EUR 1.8 billion. Adjusted earnings per share of EUR 117.7, 15.1% improvement.
You heard the chairman comment on the proposed final dividend and the proposed special dividend to be approved by our shareholders at our AGM later on this year. I am going to hand over to Enrique, who will take you through the detailed financial performance, then I will come back after he has taken you through that to address some other issues. Thanks, Enrique.
Thank you, Willie. Good morning, everybody. I think we are going to be quite consistent through the morning in terms of emphasizing that 2018 has been a very good year in terms of our financial performance and the rest of our operational performance as well. If we focused on the 2018 full-year figures, we recognize, first of all, an increase in terms of operating profit, one of our main targeted metrics of EUR 218 million, then reaching EUR 3,230 million for this year. There has been a negative impact coming from net FX, basically having to do with transaction, which has been in the range of EUR 110 million. In constant currency terms, the improvement year-on-year has been more on the line of EUR 400 million, which is really a big increase.
By the Capital Markets Day beginning of November, we were signaling an increase in operating profit more in the range of EUR 200 million. We will explain a little bit later about where have been the levers that have allowed us to enhance the improvement just to reach EUR 280 million. At the end of the day, it has been a combination of better unit revenues, lower fuel costs, and lower non-fuel unit costs as well. The foundations of these improvements have to do basically on this combination of passenger unit revenues growing by 2.4% in terms of constant currency. Non-fuel unit costs, which have been decreasing on a yearly basis by 41%, but that is unadjusted. So if we get to real underlying apples-to-apples comparison, we will be finding that the real saving in EUR terms constant currency has been closer to 2.5% for the full year.
We have had total unit revenues growing slightly higher than the passenger unit revenues. That's because of our non-ASK related businesses. In this case, basically having to do with Iberia, MRO, third-party business, and pretty sure with holiday business. That has improved our unit revenues on a total base up to a level of 2.9. Total unit costs, of course, have to include the fuel costs, which as you well know, has been a significant headwind through the year in the range of 12% in constant currency terms. At the end of the day, we've been able to grow capacity in terms of 6.1% with an improvement in load factor. Really, we have been attending markets that were growing in terms of demand. We've been able to improve load factors and unit revenues at the same time.
We've been able to reduce our recurrent underlying non-fuel costs and to cope with an increase in fuel costs of 12%, improving our reported operating profit by EUR 280 million. I think it has been a big success. Similar success has to do with the performance of the fourth quarter. We've been improving last year operating profit fourth quarter by EUR 105 million. In constant currency terms, it has been in the range of EUR 114, which is slightly higher than the average of four quarters on a linear basis. Remember the EUR 400 figure that we have noted for the full year. Fourth quarter has been relevant, has been important, has been slightly better than the average. Again, on a challenging capacity increase, 6.7%, which we basically have been able to match with real underlying demand.
We have been achieving a passenger unit revenue, constant currency terms improvement of 1.5%. We are going to be talking later more about the figure and how it's been allocated in our different strategic markets. The second big reason behind our improvements in Q4, they have to do with non-fuel unit costs on an ASK-related basis. As you can see here, we have had a significant increase in non-ASK related revenues, of course, driving costs. If we carve them out, the underlying performance in non-fuel unit costs has been very, very positive. This, of course, has to do with several things. We'll talk them later on. Very much having to do with what we call efficient growth model. We are growing fast with a very efficient growth model.
This has to do with not only the cost-cutting plans and efforts in efficiency improvement of our legacy carriers, but also of our new value carriers and fast-growing tools as Aer Lingus and LEVEL. This is again, a very efficient combination of growth, revenue management, cost management, and the challenge of fuel cost increase. On this bridge exercise that we bring to you every time, we can differentiate what has happened in Q4, between last year and this year. FX in the quarter has not been very significant. Slight headwind, not very significant. Growth, of course, has its positive impact, the 7%. Very importantly, passenger revenues. This bar, of course, has to do with passenger unit revenue impact on total improvement. Passenger unit revenue impact are very significant. Fuel costs, of course, representing a significant burden.
This comparison is also one that we are proud about. We are offsetting same day, same quarter, 70%, quasi 70% of the fuel cost drag through increased passenger management initiatives and unit revenues. The other one is non-passenger revenue, which in this quarter has had a special impact. Of course, this bar represents additional revenues. Here we should be decomposing this net EUR 21 into a negative bar, of course, which has to do with you have more revenues, but you are creating more attached costs. They have to do with the supplies that we need to create these additional third-party revenues. On the other side, there is a big improvement in other non-fuel unit costs related to day-to-day operations. Those are mostly recurrent, and we'll go through them later. That's basically how we get to the EUR 655. Let's talk a little bit of revenues.
Fourth quarter, significant growth. Basically focusing on our main strategic markets again, North America, Latin America, of course Europe domestic, and consistently less growth allocated to Asia Pacific and Africa and Middle East and South Asia. If we start with North America, basically 5% out of the 8.2 have to do with new routes. New routes represent a significant percentage of the capacity increase that we are seeing in the fourth quarter. New routes basically have to do with our expansion through our new tools. Talking about Aer Lingus, we are talking about LEVEL, but also in the case of British Airways on their own initiatives of opening new destinations that we have been informing you about. The rest is basically related to growth in routes in which we already operate. This has been done with not a dilutive impact in terms of unit revenues.
It's a flat type of performance, but if we compare company by company and route by route, what we are seeing is positive performance in British Airways, positive performance in Iberia, and of course dilutive effect in the case of LEVEL and Aer Lingus, where we are seeing growth levels in the range of 15%-18%. In terms of Latin American and the Caribbean area, we are also growing very significantly. Of course, that level of growth, 15.8%, it's having a consequence in terms of unit revenues. This unit revenue negative performance is very much affected by two special markets. One is Argentina, the other one is Brazil. What we are seeing lately is those markets are bottoming already, and that's the case of Argentina, or are slightly picking up again, which is the case of Brazil.
We believe we have gone through the worst, and we believe we are going to be having good news to show you later on in the year when we roll over the impact of the devaluation in the case of Argentina and when we start picking up the pickup of demand that we are seeing in the case of Brazil. Very good news on the domestic and European market. In spite of a capacity increase of quasi 7%. Maybe here our messages are slightly different to others that you may have heard on the region. That's basically because the way we are playing our capacity growth on our main strategic markets and how we cannot compare ourselves with what happens in the global Europe, but what's happening on our main strategic markets and on our main hubs.
Fourth quarter has been positive both in terms of European performance, the balance between capacity growth and unit revenue growth, but especially domestic unit revenues are still growing fast. There is a reason here that we are benefiting from still, which has to do with the special discounts being given in Spain to residents in Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. This really has been exciting demand, filling better our aircraft in low seasons and then improving unit revenues. We feel that's going to gradually be fading through the rest of the year as we roll over these decisions and these incentives, but still is going to be allowing us positive unit revenue performance for most of the year. Asia-Pacific, it's less relevant. The same with Africa, Middle East, because of the lower strategic significance, the lower capacity growth that we are deploying there.
What we can say is Asia-Pacific, most of the markets are still behaving positively with positive unit revenue performance. If we need to mention a market that is lagging behind, that's Hong Kong. Hong Kong is about overcapacity. That's something that we'll probably be adjusting further on through the year. We are still on the positive side in terms of unit revenues in both markets with modest capacity growth. This is a non-fuel unit cost, performance Q4 again, which I was mentioning. Fuel, as a reminder, constant currency terms, has represented an increase of 9.2%. I was telling you before that fuel costs in Q4 is one of the three pillars where we have based the improvement in operating profit.
Remember when I was talking to you early November, the fuel price in the market was just coming down from $84, which has been the record of the dollars per barrel of Brent. Really our projections at that point in time were not very confident in terms of fuel savings. The reality is fuel prices dropped since then, even with a high level of hedging, we've been able to benefit from our collar structures, then achieve better reductions in costs than the ones that we imagined at that point in time. In terms of unit revenues, we also have been able to achieve a better performance in the fourth quarter. I would say especially Europe has been performing for us better than we thought. In non-fuel unit costs, again, a significant improvement.
Of course, we don't need to refer again to employee unit cost reductions, which is, at the end of the day, the result of all these significant plans and measures that we have been completing and agreeing earlier in the year. It has to do with Project Athens, it has to do with Plan de Futuro Dos, it has to do with pension fund agreements, et cetera. Basically improvements in productivity. You will see in our figures when you read them in detail, significant improvements in terms of productivity, which will be lasting at least for the first quarter of this year. Ownership costs, that's also a little bit of a miracle, I would say. We are investing in fleet, we are investing in other critical non-fleet areas. At the same time, we are able to maintain our ownership unit cost flat against last year.
It has to do basically with this idea of efficient growth. It has to do also with how we've been able to achieve some very significant improvements in leasing costs because of the new terms and conditions prevailing in the marketplace. The operating lease market is really becoming a very efficient one. I don't know if it is going to be lasting forever, but for the time being, we are achieving record low level of monthly rentals, which we had never seen before. Finally, talking about the supplier non-fuel costs, you see a positive one. This positive is fully related to non-ASK supplier costs. The supplies, the contracts, the services that we need to fulfill this business related to MRO third party and uncertain . If we strip that one out, this would be a negative figure.
By the way, when we do the right approach, instead of 0.5, we get to a -3.8, which is easy to check with the figures because remember, the only thing that we are doing there is a very simplistic correction where we say, let's take away as a negative cost, the increase in other revenues that we have achieved. Those numbers, you can make it, then you get to the -3.8. This is fuel. Fuel for next year. Again, we are facing a period of quarters, a row of quarters where we are going to be seeing increased unit fuel costs for the group. We have made this exercise at $620 per metric ton of kerosene and $1.14 per EUR. Of course, these figures are changing every day. One day we find this is a $650, the other day we find this is a $630.
It is a consistent figure, with how the market is evolving, although there is a high level of volatility. This pattern of assumptions is consistent with a growth in terms of fuel unit cost for next year in the range of 10%-11%. Which is slightly lower than the one that we have seen this year and the one that we have been able to manage efficiently. The other good type of message in this pattern, in this chart, is the way the increases are going to be diminishing just because of comparison with last year average figures for each quarter. Again, a little bit of the light at the end of the tunnel that we could be seeing late in the year and early in 2020 if the prices and the dollar stays where we foresee them today. Okay.
This is how we have been able to perform in terms of margins and in terms of ROIC. Record level of ROIC for the group, and for most of the companies of the group this year. It is 16.6% against 16%, on a similar accounting basis for last year. Important improvement, well above what we are calling the base, recurrent base, that we have as a reference on our business plan, which is 15%. We are seeing very high figures for some of the companies of the group. Aer Lingus improving 23%-26%. British Airways improving from the 16%-ish to the 17.3%. Iberia also improving and getting into the above 13%. Vueling keeping a very similar figure to last year in the range of 13.3%-13.4%.
Basically showing that the way we are growing is also keeping a very significant focus on the profitability of our assets and our asset allocation and fund allocation decisions for the group. This is another way to tell a very similar story, I think with a little bit more of flavor. The big message here is these operating profits, and you will see also in terms of profit after tax. We are achieving this year record levels for the group and record levels for each of the companies of the group, of the main four. LEVEL is a startup that's having its own type of improvement through time. But for British Airways, it has been an operating profit margin increase of 0.7 up to 15.1. In terms of operating results, it's EUR 305. Lease-adjusted margin of 16.2, again, 0.5 percentage points above the previous year.
Sorry for Aer Lingus. For British Airways, it's an improvement of GBP 203 million sterling against last year's figure, quasi 1% of operating margin improvement, quasi 1% of lease-adjusted margin improvement. For Iberia, it's also an improvement of EUR 61 million against last year, reaching a record EUR 437 million, with improvements in both operating margin and adjusted lease margin. Vueling is having a slight reduction in operating margin, but an improvement in terms of the operating profit for the year, despite the big challenges that the company has been going through. Of course, I'll remind you, because we're referring to them very in detail in the Capital Markets Day, having to do with disruption, ATC disruption. Living in the eye of a hurricane, in terms of ATC.
Despite that very significant difficulty, this figure is record for Vueling, and the same for the rest of the companies of the group. What's happening below the operating profit levels? As you have been seeing, this improvement in terms of percentage, is around 9.5% operating profit improvement for the year. Net financial expense has a modest growth in the range of 5%, which is better than the 7% or the 6.1%, sorry, average of ASK capacity growth. Has a lot of sense. Efficient use of assets as well and financing of assets. The profit before tax figure will be growing by 11%. Effective tax being applied as a rate has been slightly improving, we compare it with the last year's average, which were in the range of 2019. This year is in the range of 18%. Basically, profit after tax will also be above 11%.
Diluted EPS, as Antonio and [inaudible] have been mentioning, is slightly above 15%, 15.1%. Balance sheet and leverage on a very type of synthetic way, we like to show. Of course, we've been going through a significant level of CapEx this year. Our asset base has increased. We've been financing our new assets, increasing our level of debt. So we have been adjusting also the level of cash, because we feel we are comfortably above the technical level of cash that we should be keeping. As a whole, our model and our ratios and projections have been supported by rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which have considered our debt an investment grade level. BBB and Baa3, stable for both S&P and Moody's. What we can say is that we are now perfectly comfortable with the level of leverage, with our liquidity structure.
Of course, the big second message is it's sustainable. It's clearly sustainable. We say it because we are seeing our business plan ahead, also these guys have been saying the same. A very short insight into IFRS 16 and the future impact on our balance sheet and profit and loss account, you will be seeing through Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Just arrows to express the main differences and trends that you are going to be seeing. Nothing special. A couple of figures which will be condensing how the whole thing is going to be working. In terms of what's going to happen on our asset lines, both asset and liability balance sheet lines, of course, I think you are familiar with it. It has to do with the recognition of right of use.
All these right of use contracts that we have on fleet and others were a non-balance sheet item in the past. You know, we adjusted our level of leverage and liabilities, recognizing an approximation using the rate of eight times rents. Now it's not an approximation, it's the way IFRS 16 explain us. We need to account for those additional assets in terms of right of use and liabilities. They have to do with fleet, they have to do with other types of property and equipment. There are small changes on our current assets in terms of how we recognize some other contracts, maintenance contracts, the rate of recovery in terms of the fleet contracts, the operating lease contracts, which create a little bit of noise here at the level of other current assets and also other current liabilities.
Of course, there is a recognition of additional liabilities having to do with the net present value of the rents that we are committed to pay. Basically that will create a balance sheet where total liabilities will grow. The same for total equities and liabilities. Just a couple of figures for you to keep. The recognition, notional recognition that we were giving ourselves through the eight times multiplier in terms of additional liabilities has been around EUR 7 billion. The right of use precise accounting gives us comparable figure of EUR 5 billion. There's going to be a reduction in the total adjusted level of debt in the range of EUR 2 billion. That will be creating also an adjustment, lowering our leverage in terms of net adjusted debt to EBITDA from the prevailing 1.5, 1.6 that you have been seeing, to a level of 1.2.
It expresses in some way that our approximation through the eight times multiplier was a very conservative one. In terms of the profit and loss, at the end of the day, nothing special. It will come down to profits before tax, profit after tax. There is minor adjustments that would be offsetting each other through time. There's a little bit of maybe different recognition of costs and taxes through the period of time of the use of the operating lease. They are minor. At the end of the day, we don't foresee nothing significant happening at the bottom lines of our profit and loss account. Of course, the main difference is going to be about our operating profit, which now is going to be better, is going to be higher. Why is it going to be higher?
Because the portion of interest-related charges that was embedded in the rents now is carved out and then transferred below the operating profit line into additional net expenses. That could be just the main difference that you're going to be foreseeing in our profit and loss size and shape. It's going to be. Better operating profit, more financial expenses. At the end of the day, very similar net profit before and after tax. That's something that we are going to be informing you through the next quarter. Before the first quarter, we'll give you some insight on how those new trends, in terms of accounting language, are going to be affecting Q1, and then the rest of the quarters. Having said that, I pass again the word to Willie.
Thank you, Enrique.
Thank you, Willie.
Just moving on to look at the outlook and the rest of 2019. We have here the usual chart that we show you in terms of our capacity plans for the year. We're now looking at a 5.9% increase in ASKs, you can see that it's broadly flat across the various quarters. Aer Lingus expects to grow about 6.5%, British Airways about 2.6%, Iberia 8.7%. LEVEL, obviously, it's from a small base, 95% roughly. Vueling at 5.5%. Just point out, the Aer Lingus capacity in the first quarter, 14.1%, that's unique to this particular first quarter. That's not something you will see on a recurring basis, you're not going to see that sort of level of Q1 growth in 2020, 2021, and beyond. Altogether, looking at 5.9% ASK growth. We clearly will continue to look at that.
I think there will be issues in terms of growth that we will not have planned. Clearly, we'll look at tapering growth where we see the demand environment changing through the year. Just to point out, in terms of BA fourth quarter, that's cycling over the Monarch slots at Gatwick and also further aircraft densification at Gatwick. Some of that growth is through the densification of the aircraft, and it's principally a Gatwick environment in fourth quarter for BA. To remind you of the guidance for the year, we're saying that at current fuel prices and exchange rates, we expect our 2019 operating profit before exceptional items on a like for like, so excluding the impact of IFRS 16 that Enrique has talked about, to be in line with the EUR 3.23 billion that we reported in 2018.
Passenger unit revenue is expected to improve at constant currency. Non-fuel unit cost is expected to be flat at constant currency. The investment case. You'll have seen this chart before. We've talked about it already this morning. You know about our unique structure. You've seen what we're doing in terms of our brands. You've seen what we're doing in terms of our capacity growth and strengthening our network. The cost efficiency, there's clearly more of that to come. We've delivered ROIC of 16.6% margin, lease-adjusted 14.4%, and EPS growth, as we said, 15.1%. The regular dividend that the board has recommended to be approved by our shareholders increased to EUR 0.165 per share, then a special dividend. We've always talked about if there is surplus cash, the manner in which we would return that would be discussed with shareholders.
You can see the level. In respect of financial year 2018, we're looking at the interim dividend, which is already paid in December, then the final dividend and the special dividend, clearly subject to shareholder approval, to be paid in July. Looking at over EUR 1.3 billion of cash to be returned to our shareholders. I think a strong performance, building on the performance of 2015, 2016, and 2017. Our cost performance, there's more that we can do and more that we will do. We continue to have this longer-term target to achieve a 1% reduction in our non-fuel unit costs on an annual basis. We've achieved 11.1% so far to 2018. That's been through structured programs in each of the airlines. There are structured programs in each of the airlines that will continue through 2019 and beyond.
We remain confident that this is an appropriate target of 1% reduction in non-fuel unit cost. It's not going to be 1% every year, I've said that on a number of occasions. We do see opportunities to further improve on our cost performance, we will be pursuing those initiatives with vigor as we progress through the year. A lot more to come. I've talked about ATC disruption, it is a feature of the business now. I do expect while 2019 won't show an improvement on 2018, I don't expect it to deteriorate.
I do expect that this can be addressed going forward because some of the issues relating to this disruption are within the control of the air traffic control providers, and it is principally related to a mismatch between their capacity as they believed was required based on the assumptions that some of these ATC units had for growth, which they got wrong. They need additional manpower. That takes time. Those recruitment processes have been put in place, and we will see some of these structural issues addressed in 2020 and beyond. I am pleased Eurocontrol actually being very proactive and much more determined than I have ever seen before. I think great credit to Eamonn Brennan, the Director General of Eurocontrol. A lot of the statistics are produced, and these are Eurocontrol statistics.
We are getting a lot of data from Eurocontrol now, they are not trying to hide the problem. As I did mention, you can see the light blue are airport related, and the darker blue are en route related. The big increase that we have seen is in the en route air traffic control. Within the airport, as I pointed out, Barcelona was one that was particularly impacted. I know this has disproportionately hit Vueling. Maybe just to give you one statistic, and again, this is from Eurocontrol data, it is not our own data. Eurocontrol analysis shows that delays attributable to the airline, to Vueling. Of all of the flights that they operated in 2018, for the flights that were delayed, just over 20%, 20.3% were directly attributable to the airline.
That compares in Iberia, which is rated as one of the most punctual airlines in Europe in 2018, where delays attributable to the airline were almost 35%. I think what you can see from that is that Vueling fundamentally is a very well-run company. A very strong operational performance in its own right, but has been impacted very significantly by the ATC environment, both at Barcelona and at Europe. We have no concerns about the Vueling performance as they can control it. Clearly we are concerned about the ATC environment, which is impacting on their performance. LEVEL, pleased with the performance. It is still very early days. You can see the expansion of the network out of Barcelona, and the redirection of some of the flying there. We have launched Santiago. We launched from Paris to Newark, Martinique, and Guadeloupe.
We have the network at Vienna. We are looking to use the LEVEL brand short-haul in Europe. We will be making some announcements in relation to that. Performance so far is in line with our expectations. It was actually running significantly ahead of expectations prior to the devaluation in Argentina. Argentina had been particularly strong performing route for LEVEL. We are pleased with its performance. Very positive customer feedback, both in terms of the brand positioning and the customer proposition. We announced, as you saw this morning, an order for 18 Boeing 777-9 aircraft for British Airways with options on 24 further aircraft. Think it is an excellent aircraft, a perfect replacement aircraft for the Boeing 747. These aircraft, just to be absolutely clear, were included in the Capital Markets Day presentation. They are not additional. If you remember, we identified for 2022-2023 a number of aircraft to be decided.
As you know, we were in discussions with both Boeing and Airbus, Rolls-Royce and GE in relation to these options. They're already included. We'll have 15 of those aircraft will be delivered in the period up to 2023. We commented that 14 of the aircraft relate to the retirement of the 747, and four of the 18 that we've ordered are the start of the replacement of the Boeing 777-200 fleet in British Airways. They were all included in the Capital Markets Day presentation that we gave you. You can see how we've now covered off the replacement of the 747s with the A350s. Whereas those A350s, which would be delivered into British Airways, the A350-1000. Some additional 777-300ERs. Still fantastic aircraft in our configuration, working very well. Now the 777-9, which I think will be excellent in the fleet as well. Brexit.
A lot going on. We remain confident that there will be a comprehensive air transport agreement negotiated between the U.K. and the EU, as is stated in the political declaration. There is good progress being made in the event of a no-deal Brexit on the issues of aviation security, aviation safety, EU-U.K. market access, and ownership and control. The U.K. government has already concluded a number of bilateral agreements with key countries, particularly the U.S., Canada, Israel, Switzerland, Norway. Those negotiations have been completed. There are agreements that will move into operation as and when the U.K. leaves the EU. We've done extensive contingency planning. Specifically, we've had very detailed and very constructive engagement with our national regulators and governments, particularly on the issue of ownership and control. That's going to continue, including discussions with the European Commission.
We remain confident that our operating companies will comply with the relevant rules post-Brexit. I don't need to remind you, but just to say it, we are a Spanish company. We have long established AOCs in France, Ireland, Spain, and the U.K., substantive business in these countries. We employ, in total, over 71,000 people. It's 65,000 full-time equivalents, but it's 71,000 people employed across the group. As I say, we remain confident that there will be a comprehensive air transport agreement as stated in the political declaration, and that our operating companies will comply with the rules. Finally, just to come back and say it was a great year. Very pleased with the performance. Financial performance is evident from the results that you've seen today. We're also making good progress on the strategic issues as well.
Just to reaffirm our guidance that we're looking at, excluding the impact of IFRS 16, our operating profits to be flat versus 2018, with an improvement in our unit revenue performance at constant currency and flat non-fuel unit cost at constant currency. I think David or we have the microphone here. We're going to take your questions now, and we'll have Andrew moderate this and do it in the usual format. We do have a number of the CEOs with us today who would be happy to answer your direct questions as well.
Thanks very much. I'm Daniel from Bernstein. Congrats on the results in a tough environment. Three questions if I may. Number one, not on Brexit, on the ownership structure, because you had an announcement a couple of weeks ago. Would you consider updating the corporate structure within your group to at some point remove ownership restrictions from the holding level? Number two, you commented on the continued unit cost performance you're targeting for the next couple of years, minus 5%. You listed several initiatives at the individual airlines. Is that to say that the performance you're foreseeing is more based on the efforts at individual airlines than on the group level? The question kind of goes to, are there any ideas on the group level across all airlines you continue to drive? What would be the big ideas on group level?
Lastly, on Avios, maybe you saw quite an increase in BA Holidays and also in the non-core revenues in the other revenue line. When would you expect or hope for Avios to also start contributing into those other revenues, maybe as you progress that strategic initiative?
Sorry, I just missed that last bit. When would we expect?
We've been talking about Avios and how you're trying to rebuild Avios. At some point, you're planning to hopefully make more money out of it. When is that, and when will that contribute into that as well? Thanks.
We remain flexible in terms of our structures. Any changes to the corporate structure would be in consultation with the regulators in the countries that we deal with. We're not going to do anything unilaterally. We are, as I said, having very extensive and constructive dialogue with the regulators in our principal places of business, and this will continue. It is a complex issue. I don't think it's well understood outside of the airline industry. People have confused and conflated a lot of issues and jumped to conclusions. I think it's been dealt with before, and we're confident that it can be dealt with again. We have flexibility. We have a number of options within our existing structures, but anything we do will be fully communicated.
It will be subject to the discussions that we're having with the regulators, and we're continuing to do that. In terms of non-fuel unit costs, I would say it's both from within the group and from the operating companies.
Exactly.
We'll continue to. There's no new big-ticket items. It's delivering on the initiatives that we've already flagged to you. There's more to come in terms of our approach to maintenance. That's proving to be very effective so far. Our distribution, which is a group initiative. You've seen there, I mentioned NDC and API indirect bookings at 17%. You're going to see that grow. That's a group initiative that will contribute. We've talked about that being in the short term, actually adding to our cost. Ultimately, we get some cost reduction coming through on that. Our plans are running ahead of schedule in relation to that at the moment. Then each of the individual operating companies have initiatives.
Procurement plans, which are group plans. We are now focusing, for example, on improving with a group bargaining power, our usage charges in the main airports in which we jointly operate. We multi operate in Europe, for example, and that's very promising. It's this combination about, I would say, centrally and group driven projects and also efforts and projects that are driven more on an opco local type of effort.
Do you want to comment about the great performance of Avios already?
Exactly. Avios will basically improve in the next years. There was a question about how they were facing IFRS 15 changes in accounting, and that now they have rolled over that issue, and they are facing two, three years of very significant growth into the future. Talking also about, I think you were mentioning non-ASK related activities as Iberia Maintenance third party business. That's a very opportunistic area of our business, where we combine our own maintenance plans and timetables with the ability to fill these gaps, these opportunities with business coming from third parties. That's going to be staying like that. We are not going to change the approach because we don't want to make a big independent business out of it. It's more about allowing us to reduce our total costs using efficiently our means and resources.
That's why we keep it as it is.
Thanks. Good morning. It's Jarrod from UBS. Three, if I may. Two on the balance sheet. Any indication of what the CapEx spend will be in 2019, maybe 2020, if I may? Just on the, related to the balance sheet, the big special dividend, just some of the thinking versus special versus share buyback given how the share price has performed. Third question, M&A now. Where do we stand? We've obviously got reviews from Thomas Cook. You've walked away from Norwegian. Are you sitting on the sidelines at the moment? Thanks.
Do you have the CapEx? 2019 CapEx.
2019 CapEx is going to be more or less in the same line as 2018. We are forecasting net CapEx figure in the range of EUR 2.6, EUR 2.7, depending on USD levels. At the same time, we are forecasting for 2019 an increase in free cash flow. The combination for next year is of EBITDA growth and CapEx is going to be providing us a net result in terms of negative cash flow. Probably allowing us to approach to the famous medium, which we have for the business plan, which is EUR 2.5. It will be probably getting closer to EUR 2.5.
In relation to the special dividend, the board considers several issues in relation to how the surplus cash should be returned to shareholders. As you know, we do consult with our major shareholders, and take that into account. On balance, this time around, the board concluded that we should pay a special dividend, and that special dividend, as I said, will be recommended to our shareholders for approval at the AGM in June of next year. On M&A, just to confirm, we have disposed in full of our shareholding in Norwegian. We completed that disposal in mid-February, from memory. We have fully sold out the shares that we held in Norwegian. We're not actively looking at anything at the moment. There's a lot going on in the industry.
We were approached, and have continued to be approached by airlines who are looking to be part of IAG. None of them have been of particular interest to us. We continue to look at opportunities, and that's the great thing about the group. We have that flexibility to move quickly if the right opportunity came along. We're not actively looking at anything at the moment.
At the same time, there are all these disruptions happening to different airlines, are creating new gaps in terms of capacities and destinations that are being abandoned. We have to be active and quick enough to fill the strategic gaps that we are interested in.
Damian Brewer, RBC. Two questions, please. First of all, on NPS, if we go away from the group number, which sounds like it's been heavily influenced by Vueling. Could you talk a little bit more about, firstly, Iberia and then British Airways and what happened there, and if possible, put some numbers on it and tell us in particular what's driven NPS to improve and what you've discovered in terms of the NPS work that means maybe there's areas where you're putting cost in where customers just aren't recognizing it or prepared to pay for it. Secondly, just on, I guess following up on the capital allocation point. Enrique, you mentioned about the lease rates. Is that changing anything in the way you're thinking about the lease versus buy balance and the duration at which you take leases?
In particular, I know what seemed like a very opportunistically timed 777 order after what happened to Etihad. Are you now purely looking at new aircraft, or if there are distressed secondhand 777s out in the Middle East, would you still be looking at those?
Okay. On NPS, because we weight our NPS to passenger numbers, that's the way we do it. We do also look at internally, we have weightings by revenue, weightings by profit, weightings by cabin. We look at this internally, clearly in a number of different ways, but the single metric we use for one of our non-financial metrics is NPS weighted by passenger numbers. It is heavily influenced therefore by the big passenger airline, British Airways and Vueling. The Vueling performance showed a very significant decrease versus 2017. That was directly, we can see it within the figures, direct correlation to the on-time performance and the disruption that Vueling suffered through the peak summer. The BA performance showed a significant increase, over 10 points of improvement from 2017. The others were broadly flat versus previous years.
What we're seeing in BA is a further, very significant increase in January and so far in February. It's well ahead of the targets that we have. What we're seeing is actually the investments we're making are investments that are appreciated by the customer. I think we're targeting the right areas. We're doing the right things. We're very pleased with the progress. This is a long-term plan. Long-term, I suppose everything in our industry is influenced by the short term. This is a very structured plan of targeted investment. All of our airlines do it. We understand where we need to invest. We understand where we may not be perfect, but investment isn't really justified, and we know the critical areas that we need to focus on. It's an excellent metric that we use.
We go into it in a very detailed way, analyzing all of the cabins within the airlines and comparing. Although NPS, you can't really use to compare one airline with another. We do use it to try and get a better feel for what's going on. As I said, I'd have to say that I can't see any evidence of us getting the investment wrong. In fact, all of the evidence shows that we're targeting the right areas. You'll see more of it. We have, as you know, a new business class seat coming with the delivery of the A350-1000 into BA. That will have a noticeable impact on our Club World NPS.
On the operating lease market, nothing structurally has changed. Remember, our aims and proportions in the operating lease market have very much to do with the combination of three elements. On one side, we need flexibility in the different fleets because we need to adjust our size, and we need to be prepared for changes in technology. We need flexibility. On the other side, we worry sometimes about our ability to manage residual value exposure on some fleets. That's another big reason why we hold certain percentages, which are different for the different fleets in terms of operating lease finance. Thirdly, of course, we like cheap money. In this occasion, cheap money coming from operating leases has been a huge tailwind. Is it going to last forever? Nothing lasts forever, I'm afraid.
You know well it has to do with this appearance of a flooding of new lessors, with probably a different risk approach and very eager to earn some positive yields on their investment and not regarding so much the risk behind. That will be basically ending at some point in time. It has to do with Chinese lessors, which are in some way inbound in the market. While it's there, come on, take it.
On the fleet, we had very constructive engagement. The way we run this is although it is two aircraft manufacturers, two engine manufacturers, there are four parties to negotiate with. Although you do not have an engine choice on either the 777-9 or the A350, we do negotiate separately with the engine manufacturers and the airframe manufacturers. Very constructive engagement. They all wanted this. They wanted to win this. This is probably the most aggressive approach that I have seen from all four. I have been dealing with these issues now for the best part of 20 years. It is even longer. It is the best I have seen in terms of them wanting our business. We are very pleased. We think the 777-9 is the right aircraft. Do not forget, what we are trying to do here is replace 747s. We needed an aircraft that had a similar capacity to the 74.
We will operate the 777-9 with 325 seats in a four-class configuration. I think it is eight first, 65 Club, 45 or 40-something, World Traveller Plus, and then 206. If that does not add to 325, it is somewhere near there. Very similar to the configuration that we have on the 747s today. We continue to look, and we did look through this process at secondhand aircraft. We had detailed discussions right up to the very end. We concluded that the right aircraft at this stage is the 777-9. I would remind people that four of these orders will start replacing the 777-200 fleets, and we have got 46 of those. There are more aircraft to be replaced, which means that all four of the players have still a lot to play for.
I think this was a very good process, and we are pleased with the outcome.
Hi, it is Andrew Lobbenberg from HSBC. Can I ask about the recent deal at Heathrow around incentives and airport charges? Also interested to see how that plays into your thinking around the negotiations on the third runway and the third runway pricing, how that fits together. A third question would be around LEVEL and how it trades on the short haul, because you discussed the long haul in the presentation. Vienna is quite a lively place. Nice chocolate cake. You are also deploying it into Amsterdam. What are your expectations there and indeed to roll it out potentially further elsewhere in Europe?
As you know, the recent negotiations with Heathrow were to address the fact that they have over recovered. We've said all along, these guys are bandits. They have over-recovered, and we've got to get that money back. It was the manner in which we get it back, was the negotiation. We're pleased that we've got a commercial agreement with Heathrow. They engaged with all of the airlines. As you would expect, given the scale of our operation at Heathrow, we would be one of the most significant. There is a new pricing structure, which Heathrow have talked about, and we believe it's right to incentivize growth. I disagree with what Heathrow said in terms of all of the airlines that Heathrow operate below the IATA global average seat factors. We don't.
In fact, most of our airlines operate above the IATA global average seat factor. There is capacity and scope for us to grow and improve seat factor further, and particularly as we have gone through that process of adding additional seats to the aircraft. I think this was a commercial negotiation. The outcome is one that we're pleased with. I wouldn't read anything into the longer term. I still have significant concerns about Heathrow's ability to deliver a third runway in a cost-effective manner. It's clear from things we've seen that the EUR 14 billion, that there's no way they can achieve the expansion at that price. We think that price is high. Based on everything we're seeing at the moment, we remain concerned that the expansion plans at Heathrow are unrealistic.
We're very clear, and I'm pleased that this issue has been addressed and accepted by the government and the CAA that the expansion cannot be at the expense of passenger charges. We will continue to constructively engage with Heathrow and the regulator on the expansion plans, but I still have my doubts. I don't think I'm the only critic of Heathrow. I know I'm probably one of the more vocal critics of Heathrow, but I can assure you, when I talk to my counterparts across the industry, they all share my view in relation to the performance of Heathrow and concerns about the potential impact of the increased charges as we go forward. Andrew, I wouldn't read anything into this. We saw them as two very separate issues. We are pleased with the outcome of the negotiations that we've had.
To your second question, you obviously have access to the Internet, and you've seen the LEVEL we'll be in Amsterdam. I was told I wasn't allowed to mention that, but given that you've seen it and I've seen it, that is the plan. We're looking at three aircraft in Amsterdam. I think we'll announce it formally in about a week's time. The reason we haven't announced it formally so far is it's not ready to go on sale. We think using the LEVEL brand in Europe is free branding, and it's exposing the brand, and it's giving us an opportunity to do things in a different way and to test things. As I said, it's the flexibility that we have within the group. Vienna itself, very competitive.
It won't come as a surprise to you to know that everybody has put a lot of capacity into Vienna. I did notice that Vienna had made record profits last year. Just reinforces everything I say about airports. We do all the work, and they make-
All the money
a lot of money on the back of all of the hard effort that we have. We will be adding LEVEL activity to Amsterdam, and we will formally announce that in a couple of weeks' time.
Great.
Thank you. Neil Glynn from Credit Suisse. If I could ask three questions, please. The first one, just in terms of your guidance, obviously you've got a unit fuel bill headwind into 2019. I'm just interested in terms of how you think about revenues. Do you either back yourselves on the industry's more concentrated structure to recover that fuel bill headwind, or is that actually based on a more bottom-up view of the revenue picture as the year develops? Second question, maybe following on from Andrew's Heathrow question. Just focusing on BA short haul at Heathrow. Just interested, can you give us some color how far away is that from covering its cost of capital at the moment? You're obviously charging for in-flight catering now. I guess the Heathrow deal incentivizes boosting the load factor there.
How do you think about how returns might develop at British Airways short haul in the future? The third question, British Airways margins. You've obviously got 15% now in terms of the operating margin for 2018. The guidance would suggest that that margin might fall in 2019. Just prompt some questions in terms of whether British Airways' margins have indeed peaked now, and how do you think about that in the future? Thank you.
On revenue, as I said, the environment in 2018 was quite challenging on a number of fronts. Fuel, foreign exchange, ATC. I think we did well against those issues. Fuel bill 2018 increased by just under EUR 700 million, EUR 673 million, at EUR 6.1 billion in 2019. There is a big fuel headwind coming our way. I think we did very well in 2018. I think we're being realistic given our assessment of the capacity in the markets that we're operating in. We're still looking at a unit revenue improvement on a constant currency basis in 2019. I think that's important. While our non-fuel unit costs are effectively flat at constant currency in 2019, unit revenue is forecast to improve.
Improve.
That's one of the things. We're all the time looking at the various different metrics to ensure that we can fine-tune to get the right results.
Capacity and other measures-
Yeah
to keep the margin that we are aiming at.
BA short-haul. You are right. It does incentivize short-haul seat factor improvement at Heathrow, and we believe there is scope for it. When we looked at the Heathrow short-haul performance at Heathrow, we do have to take into account the contribution that it makes to the long-haul and feeding traffic. We do not do that at Aer Lingus, for example. The way Heathrow operates and the extensive long-haul network that BA has, we do have to take that into account. When we look at our short-haul performance for BA, short-haul does more than cover its cost of capital, but there is scope for improvement. In terms of BA margin, I would not say it has peaked. I can remember when we hit 10%, everybody thought we had peaked. There is still work that BA can do, and I think there are initiatives that BA plans to do.
As I said, we look at things over a five-year period. Typically, when we are looking at these investments and the changes over five years, look at the improvement that we get in five years. Recognizing, as I have said many times, individual years will see changes. I think there is still scope for BA to improve its performance. I do not believe it has peaked. By no means, I do not believe it has peaked.
Remember that traditionally, we were talking about a total operating profit margin target as a healthy one for the industry and for us of 10%, it was a little bit of a magic figure. If we get to 10% for the full year, we will be getting close to where we need to be. We have shown figures where the operating profit margin of the fourth quarter for the group, which is the second worst of the year after the first quarter, the fourth quarter is the second worst, is 12%. I absolutely agree with Willie, there is much more to be done, both on the revenue side, but also for sure on the efficiencies on the cost side. It is going to be done.
Morning. Jaime Rowbotham from Deutsche Bank. Three from me, please. Firstly, I know it's small in early days, but I'd like to revisit quickly LEVEL in Austria, following up from Andrew. One of your competitors, you'll know who it was, suggested that the discounting there is too hot for LEVEL to handle and suggested retrenchment on your part. I presume that's somewhat off the mark, I'm interested to know how strong your resolve is in that highly competitive environment. Second question, on the topic of excess liquidity. You didn't need it for Norwegian. You've used some of it today for additional shareholder returns. Is there any way to use some of it to accelerate the upgrade to the BA long-haul premium offering? If the answer to that is no, perhaps you could just give an update on that upgrade. Are the 777s going to be retrofitted on time?
I presume you're going to receive your A350s on time. Last question, revisiting passenger unit revenue progression in 2019. How do you see the phasing? Q1 is clearly when you need it the most, based on the fuel slide you showed us. Is it going to be very different in the summer, do you think, to the end of this winter and beginning of next? Thanks.
Okay. LEVEL Austria. What you need to remember is the results for LEVEL are embedded in our performance here. We don't separate it out and say it's an exceptional cost. I struggle to justify how people can do that. Our performance shows an improvement in profitability based on the embedded performance of LEVEL in the figures there. We're more than capable of holding our own. We're not stupid. We're never going to do silly things. We'll do what's right for our business. Vienna is clearly extremely competitive at the moment. I don't think anybody foresaw the amount of capacity that has gone in there. We're a very efficient operator. LEVEL's cost performance is excellent. That's one of the advantages that we have with LEVEL, both long haul and with short haul.
In terms of surplus cash, if there's an opportunity to improve or accelerate the program in BA, we will do it. We don't believe there is. That's for a number of reasons, but principally relates to the supplier of the-
Upgrades
The product. We've looked at the planned maintenance. We have the ability, if we had any confidence that we could get the equipment to put on the aircraft, we can, and we have actually made changes to the program. We've identified additional hangar capacity. We're lined up to do it. We have a desire to do it, but we've got to be realistic. Everybody knows that this is an area that has been quite challenging and continues to be challenging. We're not going to make promises that we know we can't deliver. If for some reason somebody else fell out and one of these suppliers has an excess of capacity, well, then we have the capability of accelerating. The 777s will be retrofitted. I believe based on everything we see, they'll be retrofitted in line with the program that we've identified.
As I said, we're willing to accelerate it, but we don't see the opportunity. We're not going to break out passenger unit revenue.
We have to tell you, they're not going to be homogeneous and symmetrical through the fourth quarter of the year. Of course not. We recognize Q1 is going to be a difficult year because of headwinds. On one side, it's the holiday.
It's Easter. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
On the other side, we had a very benign dollar price last year. It's going to be much tougher this year. Thirdly, our peak of capacity for 2019 is going to be in the first quarter. Things are going to be getting easier since quarter two, quarter three, especially quarter four. Yeah, we are still betting strongly for this increase in unit revenue through the year. It's not going to be exactly symmetrical.
Yeah. As you know, Easter's going to have a big impact on Q1 performance, given that it was Q1 last year, and it's Q2 this year. Very significantly, it's definitely in Q2. We've had some years where it's sort of bridged both. You're not going to see any Easter effect in Q1 of this year.
Sure.
Just three small questions from me. First, I know you gave the growth by brand. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you're thinking about growth by region. Along those lines, what are the trends in the region that you're looking at as you head into 1Q? It looks like some of the U.S. carriers are talking about transatlantic maybe softening somewhat from the trends we've seen the last few years. Then the last question, just with IFRS 16, would you consider switching to talking about pre-tax income instead of operating income as a focus on the guidance?
You can deal with IFRS 16.
Yeah. Thank you.
I know it's your favorite subject.
Thank you.
Growth by region, it's going to be similar to what we've seen. We've clearly got to focus on the transatlantic, because that is an area, despite what people have been saying, that we see as being very positive. The expansion, the new routes that we've launched, I would highlight Nashville as being excellent. Seattle, fantastic. Interesting, one of the things we're seeing with Aer Lingus is the very strong premium cabin performance in Aer Lingus. I think that reflects what we're seeing in Dublin. The strong Irish economy, but particularly Dublin economy, very significant U.S. investment, strong demand. Sean pointed out to me that actually another positive of that in premium bookings is we're getting a lot of it direct. It's been a significant feature of the Aer Lingus performance in 2018 and one that we believe will continue in 2019. The broad focus of expansion.
If you look, Iberia, as I've said, 50% of Iberia's capacity is Latin America, Iberia forecasting to grow at around 8%. You can imagine it's very much Vueling is in Europe, Aer Lingus is transatlantic, BA is across the network. It's a broadly similar structure of growth regionally.
IFRS 16 impact on the profit and loss. I think I went through it. Basic differences is on one side, operating profit will increase. That's because all the financial charges embedded in the rents are going to go below the line. That's big figures. On the other side, the net financial expenses are going to increase because it's just reallocation. Net after tax and pre-tax are going to be affected by those two, by the volatility on the currencies that are maybe affecting the financial charges and the restatement of debt nominated in foreign currencies. Also a little bit having to do with the different timing accruals from the point of view of tax and from the point of view of accounting. Net net, through time, very different. Very small differences.
We should be foreseeing nothing very special on a two, three-year average in terms of net income.
You'll keep looking at the EBIT and some of the guidance then?
Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. Although our own goals are going to be remeasured mathematically. Come on, we're not going to be playing with the figures. If it's going to represent an increase of EUR 200, our figures and target will be increased by EUR 200.
It's James Hollins from Exane. Two for Álex to begin with. First on BA labor relations. I think I've seen a few headlines on quite a significant vote for industrial action. I can't remember where. It might've been at Gatwick. Just wondering if you could update us where we are on that. I think there was another headline on only a one-year deal being offered on wages. Just a general update would be good. The second is on Gatwick BA. Just wondering if you had optimized your Monarch slots as planned for this summer, and whether that's involved quite a big switch from short haul last summer to long haul this summer. Then back to you, Willie. Just wondering, now clearly Norwegian is firmly behind us.
I was wondering if you could reveal what eventually led to you not doing it and whether personally you regret that it didn't happen. Thanks.
Alex, do you want to?
Yeah, very quickly on labor relations. You've seen a headline this morning. As we do when we finalize a particular pay deal, we're in the middle of discussions. We wouldn't really comment on it. We haven't seen any behavior that would be extraordinary in terms of where we are in negotiations, which is very early on. That applies to the whole company. Anything that you may have seen in Gatwick, I think is minor and it's been [inaudible] and small things related to small things. In Gatwick, indeed last year, we began to implement the slots very quickly. We had to use leased aircraft. This year will be our own aircraft. We are adding long-haul capacity very slowly. There'll be an extra aircraft coming in at the end of this year. Very encouraged by performance in Gatwick.
Gatwick has been working on its cost base very hard for the last 10, 15 years. Today, it's an incredible position from a competitive cost base. It is the best performing airline in Gatwick, with a big difference in terms of OTP and NPS, et cetera, with any of its competitors. Full support to the Gatwick team from that perspective. Very happy with what they're doing there, adjusting very quickly to a tough environment overall for them operationally with the single runway, et cetera, but doing very well in that process.
On Norwegian, no regrets. The way we did this was we had a board subcommittee consisting of the two of us with the Chairman and the Senior Independent Director. We were unanimous in our view that we should recommend to the board that we do not proceed. I have been talking to Bjorn for over two years, trying to get him excited about IAG. He was excited. Unfortunately, it was a deal that ran out of time and absolutely no regrets. It's the right decision for us. I think we saw an opportunity, we went for it, and in the end, we decided that it wasn't worth pursuing beyond where we are. No. I wish them well. It's clear that they still have very significant challenges ahead of them.
Yeah.
We will continue to focus on our organic growth, and we have opportunities to do that.
Thank you. Penny Butcher from Morgan Stanley. Maybe to come back in a slightly different way on the BA question. What do we assume in your flat cost guidance is baked in for a deal? Is it what we've seen in the press as the offer that's on the table from your side, the 2.7%? How do we square the circle on at least what's included within this year's guidance? The second question is to come back on your earlier comment, Enrique, on the evolution of free cash flow for this year. Could you talk us through that math? Because I'm not quite sure how you get there with a flat EBIT and a flat CapEx number year-on-year. That'd be helpful.
What's embedded in our plan is what we said. We know that flights will continue. We know that the safety and security regulations will have been agreed. We know that there are measures that have been taken in relation to ownership and control. We continue to operate in terms of Brexit based on a realistic assessment of where we believe we'll be through 2019 and beyond. The engagement we've had with the national regulators, as I said, has been very constructive. We remain confident that these issues will be addressed. Ultimately, we've seen nothing to suggest that there won't be a comprehensive air transport agreement reached at some point between the U.K. and the EU. That's the stated political ambition of both.
It's the long-term direction of both the EU and the U.K. in relation to aviation, we've not seen anything that causes us to change our view in relation to that.
I'm not going to be very precise on the figures, but I'll give you a little bit of a flavor. We know first quarter is going to be challenging. It's going to be challenging because of Easter holidays, because for us it's a peak capacity period. We have some ways to deal with these specific weakness on the first quarter. A very clear one has to do with the impact in our employee labor costs of what we did last year, and that will be rollover after April. There's going to be some offsetting mechanisms that we are going to be using, and we are now seeing the pattern of bookings and revenues that will be prevailing for April, a little bit of May, a little bit of June.
We see how the revenues that have been lost for the first quarter because of Easter are coming back. We believe Q2 and Q3 are going to be recovery quarters. Q4, you see the fuel price is not going to be a challenge. We expect to be able to improve. That's a little bit of the flavor of how we see the different challenges and opportunities through the four quarters of the year.
Maybe just a quick follow-up on the first question. I was more inferring on the labor relations point with BA, as in what deal is baked into your unit cost guidance.
Yeah. Well, I'm not going to give, but we have baked in assumptions.
Okay. Assumptions.
Yeah.
Alex.
Morning, it's Alex Paterson from Investec. Two questions, please. Firstly, just back on Heathrow. You seem very confident that the cost is going to exceed what is currently mentioned. Are you confident that passengers and yourselves are not going to bear that? Are there safeguards in place? What needs to happen to make sure that they're culpable, not yourselves? Secondly, on ATC, I think you said staffing was clearly the issue, the need to get more staff in. Is that happening? Also, obviously, capacity is going to continue to grow in Europe, so the staffing levels will continue to rise. Are they going to be able to catch up and stay ahead, or are we perpetually going to be in a challenge of staff shortages?
Yeah. On Heathrow, I think there's a number of parties that will be looking at this, including Heathrow shareholders. Because to be honest with you, if I was a shareholder of Heathrow looking at a bill well in excess of EUR 14 billion, I would have to question the management's desire to proceed with expansion. I think you've got to look at the various players here. You've got the CAA, you've got the U.K. government, you've got all of the airlines. It's not a situation where, as I said, I may be one of the more vocal, but I'm not the only one that's concerned and critical of the plans at Heathrow. I've yet to hear anybody who has been positive about spending EUR 14 billion, and even fewer people being positive about Heathrow spending more than EUR 14 billion.
I don't think it's going to happen, and we're certainly not going to be quiet. It's not a case that it's me. It's everybody in IAG, and it's everybody in the industry that will resist this. On ATC, the word specific, Karlsruhe was the specific area that got its manpower planning completely wrong. They assumed a reduction in capacity or reduction in demand through their area rather than what everybody else saw was an increase. I'm happy that that will be addressed. There have also been changes made, which I think are positive. The system, you could argue, is crazy. The payment for ATC is paid based on the flight plan that you file, not based on the flight plan that you actually follow.
What that has done is, where there are neighboring ATC units, if the aircraft has filed through one but flies through the other, the one that it actually flies through doesn't get paid, and the money goes to the one that didn't actually have to do the work. It's a strange structure. That has changed now. The payments will be based on the flight plan that was actually followed rather than planned. That's a big change. That now incentivizes both airlines and ANSPs or navigation service providers to be more efficient. I can see it from an ATC point of view. If you're not going to get paid for this additional activity, you're saying, "Well, why the hell should I accept it?" There's been no incentive for neighboring air traffic control providers to accept it.
To be fair, most of them have been very good and have accepted it. The idea that you accept additional work and you know you're not going to get paid for it, and the ones that are inefficient and have not made the plans are going to continue to get the money just doesn't add up. That has been a very significant change, and that's why I'm confident that as we move forward, we will see a change because there's now a financial incentive for those to be efficient, and there's a clear financial penalty for those that don't provide the capacity. That's a very critical structural change that we see from this year. ATC will be a challenge this year, and we've factored that in. We've already factored in different routes planning. We've factored in capacity.
We've factored in the particular traffic flows and timing of those as well.
Yeah.
We've done what we think we can do. Even in that environment, I think it will continue to be a challenge in 2019. I'm hoping, because of action we've taken and action that has been taken, despite the fact that we are going to see an increase in traffic, it's less than the increase we saw last year that the situation, for us anyway, should be more manageable. 2020, 2021, I believe that there are solutions.
Okay. Any more questions? Okay.
One second.
Hi, can I just come back on Penny's question, because I'm not sure I followed the answer. Enrique, I thought you said that the free cash flow in 2019 was expected to be better than in 2018.
Yeah.
Yet, EBIT has guided flat, I thought you said CapEx was going to be the same. I know in answering to Penny, you described how you're expecting a flat EBIT, and that's good. I'm not understanding how a flat EBIT and a flat CapEx gives you a better free cash flow unless we're just playing with IFRS 16.
EBITDA is going to be slightly above. Well, not slightly. Some millions above last year.
Is that because of IFRS or something real?
EBITDA?
Yeah.
Just because the way the net financial expenses are going to be reallocated, EBITDA is going to be higher figure. Okay?
Because of IFRS.
Yes. Apart from that, we'll be having a reduction of about EUR 100 million in terms of net CapEx as well, we are having other pension fund related payments that we did in 2018, and that we are not going to be repeating in 2019. At the end of the day, we are foreseeing an improvement in free cash flow in the range of EUR 200 million. Okay. Thanks very much.
Okay. Just thank you again. As I said, we're pleased with the performance, pleased with the progress. A lot for us to do, but confident about our performance in 2019. The Q1 will be challenging as we've talked about, but the rest of the year, we believe we're in very good shape, and looking forward to seeing you or talking to you all at our Q1 results.