Good morning, and welcome to the Wizz Air Q3 full year 2024 result. Over.
After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session with questions from the room first, followed by those online. Now, hand over.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. Next slide. So we are reporting Q3 fiscal 2024, so this is the period ended on the 31st of December. As you know, the whole financial year fiscal 2024 is a tricky one with regard to all the imperfections through the air business arising from geopolitical angles or supply chain angles and the way how accounting flows, you may come across with some distortion. And I will try to make some commentaries, not only on the quarter, but also on what you should be expecting for the whole financial year performance. Because I think you really have to take a financial year perspective as opposed to just a quarterly perspective, given how the accounting works. So first of all, we continue to grow our business.
Capacity grew substantially in the period. Again, just putting things in perspective, Wizz Air today is 50 percent larger than pre-COVID, making us unique versus the industry. So clearly, we took strategic benefits coming out of the COVID times. Load factors are somewhat below our norms, but that's largely the impact of the events we had to react to during the period, and this is the war in Israel and Gaza . With regard to RASK, same issue. So when you look at it from a quarterly perspective, the events around us made considerable impact on our performance.
But I would say that, most importantly, we are in a cost business, not in a revenue business. Of course, revenue is important, but we are fundamentally driven by cost. ULCC, as we call ourselves, is operated in a commodity market. Short-haul flying is increasingly a commodity, and we believe strategically, lowest cost means lowest cost prevails in order to be successful with that model. So cost is in focus of the company. We started seeing some decline of ex-fuel cost, and of course, we benefited from the lower fuel cost in the marketplace.
Now, if you start looking at the underpinning factors affecting your cost performance, you see that the quality of operations has improved tremendously versus where we were a year ago or before. I mean, we are running a different airline. We are one of the best in Europe in terms of flight schedule completion, but also on-time performance has been picking up considerably. Probably the most important underpinning factor is fleet utilization. I mean, this is the way you spread high fixed cost in the system, and you derive economic efficiencies. This is now back to basically pre-COVID levels. And I would like you to kind of think over the financial year here.
So we are expecting 12.5 hours of fleet utilization to come through when you exclude the engine-related grounding. So all others are included, so maintenance aircraft, spare aircraft, you name them, other than the engine-related groundings. We are bang on target, 12.5 hours, what we communicated, and this is in line with pre-COVID performance. And this, and we believe that this is one of the most significant underpinning performance factors to cost performance. As we speak, we have a number of aircraft on the ground due to engine inspections. At the end of the period, we are reporting 30 aircraft on the ground. Today, we have 35 aircraft on the ground.
Nevertheless, I think we continue to be recognized globally for our economic efficiency and corresponding environmental and sustainability efficiency. We got named again by CAPA to be the most sustainable airline on the planet for the second time. And I think we are also very recognized for our safety efforts and safety records, being named within the group of the top five safest global low-cost airlines by Airline Ratings. Cash balance, of course, keeps improving with profitability. As you know, we have just repaid the first EUR 500 million bond, and Fitch reaffirmed our investment grade credit. So next slide, please. Certainly, what we can say is that Wizz is a lot more resilient business than ever before.
If you just look at what has happened to the business over the last three to four years, COVID first, a war here, a war there, and in between, supply chain exposure. But we continue to drive the business forward. Of course, we have to process all these external impacts and external shocks in the system. But we believe that we are a lot more capable today than what we were a few years ago. I think you have been well informed with regard to our exposure to geopolitical events, the war in Ukraine and Israel, Middle East situation.
We had to make capacity adjustments, and we had to act to the changing circumstances. The GTF issues continue to pose a significant exposure. On the one hand, we process those issues operationally, and on the other hand, through a financial settlement with the financial exposure. I think we have a fair deal in place. We made comments on that before. And now the settlement is operational. And again, we remain very focused on delivering fleet utilization through the portion of the fleet that remains operational, net of entering groundings. Next slide, please. So you see the map of the business, our geographical footprint.
We are reporting significant growth, both capacity and passengers, as well as fleet. I think that is important, that the fleet continues to grow, despite all the supply chain exposure. As a matter of fact, fleet growth, new aircraft deliveries are one of the mitigants we are taking to offset the grounding effects on the business. We just stay focused on protecting capacity, given the circumstances, by extending our fleet program, and you will see the number of actions we are taking there in a moment. So next slide, please. And this is just to give you an update on the GTF situation. I don't think anything fundamentally has changed.
This is largely reconfirming what we have presumed and, what we have said. So again, 30 aircraft on the ground on the 31st of December, 35 as we speak today. We expect 40 aircraft on the ground by the end of March. As you know, we have taken a number of mitigating actions to protect capacity with that regard, we continue to take new aircraft deliveries. That's around 30 aircraft in the financial year coming. We have extended aircraft leases. Otherwise, we would have returned those aircraft to the lessors. Now, we maintain those aircraft in operation, and we also took three aircraft on dry lease to make sure that we put in contingency for capacity.
Also, we are looking at ways of enhancing utilization, and sectors to the extent possible to again protect the capacity of the airline. With regard to the assumptions around what it takes to recover the engine, get the engine inducted and push it through the shop process, our assumptions remain pretty much the same as guided before. This is a long process, a long, painful process, so this is an issue on hand for the next 12 months -18 months, as we expected. Next slide, please. Ian, over to you.
Thank you, József. So in terms of the financial performance for the quarter, revenue was up 17% to almost EUR 1.1 billion. Fuel costs, fuel costs only, were only up 3% due to better control, fuel efficiency, a more favorable pricing environment, and the benefit of the hedging program that we've reinstated at the beginning of this fiscal year. Costs, ex fuel, increased to EUR 739 million, but reduced on a unit cost basis, which we'll discuss in a later slide. What's important is that EBITDA was positive in Q3. This is the first time that we've generated a Q3 positive EBITDA since FY 2020, and that is yet one more milestone that we, that we cross off towards returning the business towards pre-pandemic metrics.
In terms of operating profit or EBIT, we had an operating loss of EUR 180 million, and we report a net loss for the period of EUR 105 million. Cash was up 10.6% versus the FY 2023 year-end balance, and versus the December 31, 2022 balance, up 24%. Next slide. On an ASK basis, we grew 27% in the period, which was a deliberate investment into the business to ensure that this capacity has time to mature in front of our summer peak periods. During the quarter, that additional capacity and the impact of the latest Israel-Hamas war put pressure on our quarterly unit revenue growth year on year, affecting both ticket and ancillary unit revenue.
Of the 8% decline in RASK and unit revenues, we estimate roughly a third of it to be driven by the geopolitical capacity changes, impacting flights to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. We also had an impact through a shorter booking curve because of the capacity that was redeployed, trying to capture the holiday season, as well as directionality of travel, based upon the timing of the holiday season. In balance, you know, we added 30% capacity almost, whereby others were constraining, and our load factor is maintained basically flat, slightly up for the period. Next slide, please. In terms of CASK, as you can see, overall CASK down 9% and ex-fuel CASK down 1.1%.
Fuel costs help that predominantly, but the ex-fuel CASK number is the number that we focus on and that we can control, and that was driven predominantly by higher utilization and the continued execution of our ULCC principles. Entire fleet utilization was 11 hours and 35 minutes, but if you adjust for the 13 aircraft at the end of the quarter that we had grounded for engine related and other matters, this increased to 12 hours and 15 minutes, and as József said. For the full year, we anticipate being at 12.5 hours, in line with one of our key operating KPIs. In terms of our cost lines, other than the depreciation category and the other category, we were either flat or we reduced unit costs.
Depreciation costs increased because of a greater share of brand new, more expensive neo aircraft, and our other line increased due to a combination of factors, such as disruption costs, which land into that line. So you would have seen disruption costs, compensation costs associated with Israel cancellations, as well as when an engine is removed for unexpected reasons, that results in an immediate trigger of a cancellation and costs associated with that. Next slide, please. In terms of cash, we're taking all measures possible to ensure that we meet the bond obligation of the 19th of January, and that payment was made. So we ended the quarter with EUR 1.7, just under, in cash on hand.
We saw no disproportionate or distortionary effects with cash evolution throughout this, the low season. We will experience some pressure on forward-looking cash due to the unflowed revenue being slower due to the capacity growth reduction that's happening going forward. But we've put measures in place to ensure a strong cash balance, and we're very pleased with our liquidity levels, where we are in the season and having paid off our obligation. Net debt increased as a result of additional aircraft coming online to EUR 4.2 billion. We put in place a renewal of our EMTN bond program, although we have no plans to access that.
Our investment-grade rating with Fitch was maintained, and we plan on embarking with conversations with Moody's, as and when they're ready to have that conversation on reviewing our credit rating. Our leverage ratio was relatively stable at 5.2, and we expect that with profitability continuing into the future, that will reduce in line with expectations. Next slide, please.
Yeah, thank you. So, let me start with reviewing operational performance of the airline. So next slide, please. I think the most important issue we are having here is the around fleet utilization, so we are getting back to where we need to be. I mean, you remember when we started talking about the financial year, we said that the utmost important issue for the business is to reinstate its utilization model. Because if you have a high utilization performance that spreads your cost, you benefit on the unit cost side. If you don't have it, that's going to be a significant penalty on your cost performance. And you see that we are really getting it back.
Again, the comment I would make, when you look at it on a total financial year basis, we are back and bang on 5.5 hours on target, when you exclude the Pratt & Whitney groundings. The other significant issue is around completion and on-time performance. We got beaten up a year ago, two years ago, for poor performance, and indeed, I think at that time, we were simply just not ready for processing all the shocks coming from the system on geopolitics and supply chain. We made significant investments in organizational capacity into spare activities, to make sure that we uphold our standards when it comes to completion and on-time performance.
As of today, we are actually one of the best performing airlines in Europe, so we completely turned the situation around. Next slide, please. So with regard to the fleet program of the airline, this is unchanged. So really, the GTF issue is a temporary distress to the business. It is mitigated based on short-term measures, especially when it comes to extension of existing leases. I mean, we are extending existing aircraft for a couple of years to bridge us in with that exposure. And the same for the dry lease aircraft. And as we continue to take new aircraft deliveries, obviously, that create further capacity to the business. But effectively, no change.
Maybe you have an interest in the XLR. We are still having confirmation from Airbus that the very first aircraft unit would be delivered before the end of this calendar year. That may slip, given all the issues out there when it comes to aircraft manufacturing. I'm pretty sure you have updated yourself on some of the developing issues with that regard. But whether this is end of this year or early next year, I think the XLR is going to be a reality within the next five months or so. Next slide, please. So sustainability, we remain focused on sustainability. You can see that technology is a significant driver that makes us more sustainable than any of the airlines in the industry.
That got confirmed by CAPA with the recognition of this being the sustainable airline of the year on a global basis for the second time this year. At the same time, we have been also improving our ratings with other ESG-related rating agencies. So, we think this is important. We think we are in good position to address sustainability and we are doing our best to improve our standing. And it's not just carbon emission, but we are taking a number of other directions on the other sides of ESG. So next slide, please.
Now, this is probably an important slide for you, and I started this presentation with a note that there is significant disruption to the numbers given how accounting works in the financial year. And the biggest element of distortion is really around the supply chain issues. I mean, you recall that we got affected by the Pratt & Whitney engines essentially throughout the whole year, one way or another, either by we had to take more spares like spare engines. There was a point in time when we have consumed all our spares, and we started grounding. So significant cost penalties have been hitting the business throughout the year, and towards the end of the year, we entered into a compensation agreement with the manufacturer.
So now we're going to start recouping some of those cost exposures. But you should not look at it like, well, I mean, business is now the business is now only relying on, on compensations. We have already paid the penalty through costs in the year. We are just taking it back in the form of compensation. So this is just an offset. So compensation is not making money for the company, just offsetting costs what the business has been exposed to. So with that in mind, looking at capacity, so we are guiding on second half fiscal 2024 capacity being up 20%, which implies that the last quarter capacity, Q4, we are into, is going to be 15%+ higher capacity.
Load factor, we are expecting it to be +90% for the whole financial year. RASK, we expect full year, financial year performance to be mid-single-digit higher year-on-year. And xFuel, and this is what you are not yet seeing, we are expecting a full year lower xFuel CASK mid- to high-single-digits. So if you look at the first nine months where you have visibility, you don't see these numbers, so very significant improvement needs to happen in the last quarter. And it is because that is how the money flows, how the accounting works through the compensation. So we will have an extraordinary low-cost production, xFuel cost production, in the quarter we are into.
But, it, you know, to a large extent, this is an offset of the previous quarters, where we had to take cost penalties. With that, net profit is maintained. Net profit guidance EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million, and we are also guiding you for the first half, fiscal 2025 capacity to be flat year-on-year. So again, this is confirming our plans, that despite all the groundings and exposure to the supply chain issues, we are upholding capacity, so we are able to mitigate that exposure through expansion of the fleet, and improvement of sector productions and utilization, to make sure that we are not giving up market capacity.
And it will be around the same as what it was a year ago.
And then-
So-
Then just to make one point, 'cause I saw this question come through earlier. With regards to the net profit number, we're assuming that the unrealized FX gains or losses are flat. So there's no assumption there in terms of FX rate that's propping up or supporting that number. So this is unadjusted for FX.
So I think, again, back to the previous statement, we are in a business of cost. We are in the business of CASK, and especially we are in the business of ex-fuel cost. And I would make a few comments on that. If you look at the fundamental drivers of ex-fuel cost performance, where business resilience is one of them, and we made a huge investment into that to make sure that we are a more resilient business. We are better positioned to deal with any sorts of disruptions to the business than before. Two, the utilization module is back into where it used to be, so
Usage.
bang on ULCC utilization levels. And three, we have been mitigating the supply chain issue and offset the cost exposure arising from that with the arrangements with Pratt & Whitney. And one last dimension I'd like to offer you is that if you take the whole fiscal year view, and you look at reserves ex-fuel cost performance and cost performance, and how that relates not only to previous year but to pre-COVID performance level, we're going to be up mid-single digit. Our best competitor is going to be up high single digit. So actually, our cost advantage is improving relative to pre-COVID levels.
You will figure it out when you model it, we model it, and this is a very clear conclusion. So really to wrap it up, in my mind, we are really back in the first game. We are focused on cost production. We are back into the model what we had pre-COVID. Yes, we are going through a turbulent period due to geopolitics and supply chain. We have been able to mitigate the cost side of it. We have not been able to mitigate the revenue side of it, but I would be a lot less worried about revenue, because revenue, at the end of the day, is a function of the market.
And you can have short-term hiccups, but this is commodity, and the market is driven by cost. And performance of airlines are driven by cost as opposed to revenue. So revenue will ramp up in any event. Of course, we try to do our best to do that. And I think now we're going to be seeing a lot more leverage going into the next financial year by having contained capacity, so that's going to enable us to better deal with the revenue exposure. But the fundamental focus of the business is on cost, and I say we are coming back. Thank you. Any questions?
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... listening online, please introduce yourself before asking your questions.
Hi, yeah. Good morning, it's Harry Gowers from J.P. Morgan. Two questions. First one, could you maybe just try and give us a steer on the ex-fuel CASK for the full year, 2025, obviously including the compensation? So directionally, should we be thinking it's up or flat or down for the full year? And then your RASK guidance for this year, which is up mid-single-digit % year-over-year for the full year. For Q4, that would probably apply somewhere in the high single-digit % year-on-year, and that's on 15% capacity growth still. So should we be thinking if capacity growth slows to zero in Q1 and Q2 of the new financial year, your RASK performance could be a lot better than that high single-digit % year-over-year as we go into 2025?
Thanks a lot.
So on the CASK number, I would we're not guiding on CASK, but I would expect it to be flat or thereabouts on the ex-fuel CASK, for FY 2025. Despite the pressures you'd see from lower capacity coming in, because of the structural improvements that we've made over the years, and the operational resilience, maintaining those 12.5 hours a day utilization and the on-time performance and the completion factors.
I think with regard to, to unit revenue or RASK, I think you're absolutely right. You, you got the numbers right, so, Q4 is expected to be high single digit, if not, if not double digit. We should be able to derive, revenue benefits, from the capacity constraints, coming into play for the first half of the financial year, fiscal 2025. We are not yet guiding. We just, we just want to get settled, on some of the, the issues, but there should be an inherent benefit coming through.
Yeah. Hi, it's James Hollins from BNP Paribas. Three for me, please. I was wondering if you could, like our friends in Orange yesterday, just provide us a nice, clean financial impact of the Israel tragic situation there, either for the quarter or for the half. They gave for the half. Secondly, slightly brushed over the fact that ancillaries were down 6% per passenger year-on-year. Perhaps explain to an idiot like me why that would be impacted desperately by the Israel situation, or maybe you can provide a bit more detail on what's going on there. And the third one, probably another idiotic question, but I'm not sure I understand why deferred sale and leasebacks would be a positive for the quarter. I thought sale and leasebacks, when they happened, were positive for you.
So maybe you can quantify or explain what's going on there, quantify the third sale and leasebacks contribution in Q4, I guess. And maybe, I know I'm pushing it here, but quantify, at least in round numbers, the Pratt & Whitney compensation in Q3, ideally Q4, and every quarter from now. But anything you like on that would be really helpful. Thank you.
All right. So on the first one, we don't have a clean financial impact in terms of the nominal number to hand, and I don't know if we would necessarily share that for the Israel, Egypt, Jordan impact. On the ancillaries, I think I've got two points. I don't know, József, if you want to add anything else, but on the ancillaries, we do see a high propensity of ancillary fees on particularly the longer sector routes to and from places like Israel, where maybe you expect people to travel with more bags than they would through Europe.
The other point on the ancillaries is that there was a distortion in the Q3 FY 2023 reporting period, where the ancillary revenue had benefited from a one-off due to certain COVID-related credits that we burned off at that point, having expired them, and that makes the comparison period year-on-year distorted. So that explains part of the gap on the ancillary side of things. I don't know if you want to add anything else on ancillary.
I don't know. Maybe, Robert, you have more?
No, I think the only, as you said, the major point is that-
Yeah, you're going to need a mic.
And the only other-
It's on.
The only other point is on the Israel performance, specifically.
As mentioned.
It was a market that not only impact, because they also have it.
Then on the deferred sale leasebacks, so there's a lot happening in the Q4 that would normally be spread out across the year. So we have now the impact of the compensation, which that Joseph talked about. We have our normal sale leaseback activity on aircraft, and just the way that the aircraft delivery profile worked impacts Q4. But we also, as part of our ordinary course of business, pursue engine sale leasebacks. And as we know, for the first three quarters of the year, there was a supply chain challenge, which meant that engines that we otherwise would have been able to benefit from for our operation were deferred.
Those engines are now starting to come in as part of regular engine deliveries, as well as associated engines with our compensation agreement, and, and now we're bringing them to market as part of our usual sale leaseback. Now, I know you're going to have a follow-on question to say that, you know, you know, our sale leaseback gains core to the business, and we certainly believe that they are, and we argue that, our, our money is made in the buying of assets, and the way that we translate that low purchase price into our P and L is by way of the sale leaseback transactions. And it just so happens that the, along with many other things that didn't happen, perfectly matched to the costs per quarter this year.
We're this is why we're asking people to look at the full year view, and lump it all in to understand the effect of what's going to happen year on year, full year comparison to the prior years and to pre-COVID.
I think-
I know-
Maybe the best way to think about this, I think this year, the current financial year, is kind of tricky because you essentially observe the costs throughout the entire year, but you only see the benefit and offsetting benefit coming through in the last quarter. So the last quarter is going to be usually distorted, but you should not take it like, well, the company is now making money on Britain, because that's not true, because we have already suffered the cost before, and we just get paid in that point. But going into the next financial year, I think it's going to be a lot more balanced.
Mm-hmm.
So we have, we have the burden of cost, and we will have the offset coming through the compensation pretty much in the same, same time, quarter by quarter.
Morning. It's Jaime Rowbotham from Deutsche Bank. Three from me, please. Firstly, I thought Pratt talked about 250-300 days for those shop turn times, and I thought Wizz would be heavily prioritized. So the 300 days you mentioned on slide 5, is that a frustration? Secondly-
Oh, it is not.
I'll give you the others, and then back to that. In terms of mitigating factors from the same slide, I think you were going to try to negotiate with your lessors to maybe try to defer some of these payments until you're back using the aircraft again. So I just wondered if there's any update on that. And then finally, the point about flat capacity for summer 2024 and the scope to yield up. I mean, have you any early evidence of the ability to do that, the extent to which there is or isn't any elasticity of demand to price on those routes where you're now not going to grow? Thanks.
Okay. So, with regard to Britain, I mean, everything is a source of frustration when it comes to Britain, everything. Okay? So of course, slot, slot is a time, is a, is one of the significant ones because, you know, 10 years ago, we were talking about 70 days in total, now we are talking about 300 days in total. So if you can get it done over 250 days, I think we're going to be happy relative to, to the 300 days expectations. But there is nothing guaranteed at the moment. I mean, let's not, let's not forget that Britain with Brexit issues is, material supply. I mean, we have no visibility on material supply, and certainly we have no control over material supply.
I mean, we can make assessments on, on physical infrastructure, like whether there are shops available, you know, qualified personnel available, but we have no idea about, material, supply. So I think we are at the mercy of Pratt & Whitney, with, with that regard. Of course, we try to do our best, and we, we are pushing these guys to, to get some, some level of priority. And I think we managed to achieve certain things like, guaranteed induction slots, which I think sets us somewhat aside from the, the rest of the crowd. But I, I don't think there is anything like, like an absolute, guarantee. But with regard to I just, I would just echo the, the, your last question, the, summer 2024, price elasticity.
I mean, where we really have visibility is the current quarter we are in, and clearly, as we had to constrain capacity versus our plans, we are seeing the yield benefit of that. So that is evidenced, and as we just discussed, high single-digit, maybe double-digit, you know, RASK, will come out of this period, and still on the back of 15% growth or 20% growth year-on-year. Now, given that in the first half of the next financial year, we are not planning on capacity growth, so it's going to be fairly flat. I mean, intellectually, even, you can derive that you definitely should have RASK benefit coming out of it.
But we don't have yet the level of visibility to quantify the number.
And then on the question on the mitigating factors on the sale-leasebacks, but not, not the sale-leaseback, on the leases. For any lessors listening on the call, if they want to offer us rent holidays and deferrals, we'll certainly take them. But there's a level of complexity that comes along with that versus areas that we can control cost. You know, we're trying to get this business back to, to, to firing on all cylinders like it was in the past. And so there's also a fine balance between asking for short-term concessions while at the same time being in the market for sale-leasebacks going forward.
We think that the benefit for maintaining our low cost of financing, despite a high interest rate environment, or maybe some of the other flexibilities that we're trying to put in place, like euro, euro-denominated leases, or having the ability to float for a period of time and then fix to see where the interest rate environment, those factors, I think, drive more value to the company than an immediate rent deferral. Although we certainly won't take, like I said, and there may be situations where we are able to take advantage of that, but I wouldn't call it a systemic program that we're pursuing, where, you know, it was something that was very common during COVID, for example.
But I would also like to caution that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Correct.
When something is deferred, there is a price tag attached to it.
Morning, we're coming from RBC. One question on flattish, the outlook for, the next financial year. Should we expect that to be flattish across your network, or you look to move capacity around? And then perhaps into full year 2026, could you, talk about some range of outcomes in terms of capacity growth in that financial year?
... Yeah, so, the guidance is for total capacity of the airline group. But of course, capacity growth or decline will differ depending on the airline, depending on the market. So this is not like absolute stance year-on-year across the network. This is a flat capacity overall, but variations market by market order. We try to kind of shorten the band to an extent possible to manage volatility arising from that. But that implies that we are creating some level of flexibility in the system to move aircraft and people around within the Wizz Air network. We try to minimize the disruptions coming with that.
We made a number of, I think, very strong commitments to the organization that we are not closing any base. So we uphold every one of our bases. I think this is to protect people, people's job, and also it is to be in position once we are out of this loop, to be able to ramp capacity back up, to the level needed at that time. If you recall the fleet plan, I mean, we continue to take new aircraft deliveries, so we come to summer 2025, so this is fiscal 2026. I mean, we're going to, we're going to be operating already like 80 more aircraft than in summer 2024 or what we operate in summer 2023.
So we have to be in position to be able to ramp the business up to that level. So we need the skeleton, you know, the bones of the network and the base system intact to be able to put more meat on that when we come to the ramp up. One of the learnings during the COVID time is that it's so easy to wind down. It's a lot more difficult to ramp back up. So you, when you wind down your business, you have to keep the ramp up in your mind, that at one point you're going to be facing a converse challenge. And we are trying to do that.
FY26 range of outcomes.
Well, FY26, the one thing what we know for FY26 is how the fleet is going to look like. I think we have a pretty good view on that. We have already incumbent aircraft arrangements, leases, et cetera, in place, and we have the new aircraft delivery plan. So, if you go back again to the fleet plan, I think that kind of gives you the number of aircraft in the fleet. What we don't know exactly is how quickly we're going to recover the engines and how that implies aircraft back into flying. So like the previous question, it matters whether this is 250 days or 300 days or only 200 days.
So the very schedule of ramp up is still subject to variations, but I think the overall fleet picture is very clear. So we're going to be a lot bigger airline in summer 2025 than what we are operating today. So we are looking at like something in the neighborhood of 30%-40% more capacity at that time.
Thanks. Alex Irving from Bernstein. I've got a follow-up on that exact answer. So if you think about 30%-40% possible, more usable metal year-over-year as those engines come back on wing, get back into the fleet, is that a situation that you would want to be in, or are you considering alternative options, for example, some sales of those aircraft so they can come back in to manage your capacity at a more normal level of growth for yourselves?
No, I think, I think that's where I would want to be. I mean, the problem I'm having today is that, the markets we are, we are operating require a lot more capacity than what we are able to provide. So today's operation is already suboptimal versus demand. And, and we just need to make sure that, you know, we catch up on that, and we continue to drive our growth agenda going forward. So you recall when last time we discussed this issue, so we're seeing that fiscal 2025, essentially calendar year 2024, is a challenge of cost pressure, but with opportunity to increase revenue. So it's going to be high cost, high revenue, if you want to put it that way. The following year, fiscal 2026, essentially summer, 2025, will be the opposite.
So it's going to be very low cost because we're going to be dumping capacity, if you wish, to the market. So that will take our unit cost performance down, but that will also dilute the yield potential of the business. So you need to look at the margins. But we're seeing that we are currently under supplying demand, and as a result, the ramp-up is going to be less of a challenge from a market perspective. I think it's going to be more of a challenge from an internal organizational perspective, because what are we talking about here? We are talking about, like, another 4,000 people, pilots and cabin crew, to be hired, trained, and inducted and make them up and running, for the business.
I think it's more of that challenge than the market challenge, but it's going to be, you know, low cost, low revenue, versus the year we are just heading towards, which is high cost, high revenue.
And then the second question I had, so the basic approach brings you back up to 12.25 hours in the quarter just gone, which looks ahead of pre-pandemically on the operating fleet. How does that interact with the engine durability issues you're also experiencing? And are you risking an increase in disruption costs and using unit costs as unexpected engines come off wing? Why are you comfortable running at that high level of productivity given what you're experiencing on the engine durability front?
I don't know, guys. Do you wanna take this?
Please. Thank you. No, I mean, very good question. I mean, the as we all know, the powder metal issue is different than just the regular durability issues, and those continued with unscheduled engine removals. Part of the Pratt challenge is that more engines keep going in the shop at a faster rate than they're coming out. I think as you look at the higher utilization, we've basically adjusted our operating tactics to stay stable within the two-week window for sure, where the disruption costs are very punitive, as you know, and we're managing the lines of flying further out as we go.
So fortunately, we've not been dealing too much with big waves of grounded engines simultaneously, but as they do come off, we're able, with the little bit of breathing room that we've designed into the day-to-day operation, we can manage that on the short term with our operating spares, and then we continue to have to adjust capacity appropriately. Either we are getting engines back to replace, or we do have to adjust lines of flying outside of the disruption window. So it's kind of a, you know, a fine art right now, and I think, unfortunately, we're getting good at dealing with these problems, but, they'll continue. I would expect them to continue through the year.
There's no design change yet until the Advantage engine likely comes out, so we're going to continue to see vibration issues and engine, odor issues in the cabin. It's kind of the same recurring things that we see going on the ground that's separate than powder metal. So, and then on top of Pratt's ability to, to return, I mean, they've still got a lot of engines backed up in front of the shop, so it's too early to tell what their improvements will be. We do expect some to come through, but right now the most important point is getting the ones in the shop back and then seeing the throughput on the other ones.
Even for a long baby, yes, those quick ones. For some, the capacity growth in FY25 , I think your initial thoughts last quarter was maybe broadly flat for the year, back-ended better. So actually, the sum would be slightly down in reply. So maybe something-
Talk about making these extensions or something to get flat, which I think is-
Performance in the context of the groundings. I'm assuming no rumblings from Airbus in the context of all these engine issues that would add any further problems or delays in terms of the supply chain of the delivery schedule. And then just a clarification on the ex-fuel costs for next year. I get it, obviously flat, flat growth, this makes the challenge offset by efficiencies and
Utilisation, presumably
- will be helped by more even, conversation for Pratt as well, rather than if I got that right. So thank you.
So on the FY25 capacity guidance, so we're—we had said previously, full year flat for FY25. This is meant to clarify that we expect flat to be a H1 and H2. Okay, so there's no low in one half, high in the other relationship. I think you answered the third question, but on the Airbus supply chain, I think, I mean, it's consistent with what we've been expecting, what we've been telegraphing. The contracted positions are presented in the slide, and there are the usual delays that are happening, but nothing out of the ordinary, driven by Pratt.
I think, I mean, this is my opinion, based on what I have been seeing and what I'm seeing at the moment, is that Airbus is not in the position where Boeing is. I think Boeing is a lot more challenged at the moment than Airbus. Like, Pratt is more challenged than CFM on the engine side. I think on the airplane manufacturing side, Boeing is in a lot worse position.
Hi, everyone, Roy Gaynor from Bloomberg Intelligence. So just to follow up for me on the RASK, guidance for this year. Now, you've cited some maturity curve impact essentially in the, in the third quarter, but presumably some of that would still be playing through in the fourth quarter. I just wonder how you see that trending in the fourth quarter and also into next year. And also considering that if you're adding capacity back to Israel, might that serve as a headwind as well?
Yeah, so I think, I think RASK is very tricky because you have a number of kind of overlapping trends. I mean, of course, so, so a typical maturity curve is that you put up the capacity, lose money in year one, you are kind of coming up to break even or close to break even in year two, year three, you're going to be making, you know, constant profit margin. So that's kind of the overall pattern. So if you apply that, so whatever capacity we put up as a result of the war in Ukraine, now you start seeing significant maturity coming through. But at the same time, the capacity what you put up against the Israel situation is still totally premature. So that's a drag down.
That was an interesting decision, and I think that's important also to know that one of the reasons why, you know, we ended up with more loss in the quarter we are reporting is exactly that we took a deliberate decision to invest the capacity prematurely during the quarter, because we're seeing that the earlier you invest, the earlier we arrive the benefit of maturity. So by going into summer next year, actually, that will already be somewhat a mature capacity, and we will benefit from that. Certainly going into next winter is going to be a lot more mature capacity. So there is this immaturity pain in the business, and if your business can afford to invest in the low period, yes, it's going to be dirty and ugly in terms of profitability.
But if you kind of look at it through the whole maturity curve, you derive more benefits, all in all. If you can't afford due to cash traps or whatever issues you may have on liquidity issues, then typically airlines invest during the summertime, because, you know, cash-wise, they can get along with that investment a lot better. But we felt that, you know, we are in solid liquidity position, we should make the investment as early as possible, to start seeing the benefits of those investment, going forward. But it's very, it's kind of, you know, all sorts of issues and impacts at the same time.
Thank you.
Hi, it's Andrew Lock from Barclays. Can I start perhaps with the compensation? And I know you're very much constrained on what you can tell us. But last quarter, when the issue first came up, and we were quizzing you, I thought there was a rough principle that you were counting the number of aircraft on the ground, sending an invoice to Pratt and getting the money back, and therefore, that the groundings would, or the scale of the groundings would correlate with the amount of compo that came in. Is that the right sort of concept, or is that the right sort of concept in general, but it doesn't apply in Q4 that comes up?
I would say it's the right concept in general, but it doesn't apply to Q4. Because Q4 also takes care of the issues and costs we have already incurred during the whole financial year. But as of Q1 next financial year, I think that correlation basically will come into play.
Yeah, I think on a going forward basis, you see that the sort of run rate in line with groundings. But the package is multifaceted, and there's elements of the package that are coming in that are designed to cover some of the prior quarters as well.
Okay, thanks. And then can I ask on sale and leasebacks? I hear you explaining that, you know, sale and leasebacks are a core way of drawing value from your good orders. So to help us understand it or quantify it, are you able to offer any guidance or point to parts in previous years' financial reports that would indicate how much gains you've taken from sale and leasebacks in historic years?
We can't. I mean, that would be far too sensitive, and I think we are also bound to confidential agreements here. But if you look at the two philosophies, so basically we acquire the aircraft at very low price, and we cash in on that acquisition cost, and we make a margin when we sell the aircraft and lease it back. And that goes against another model when you essentially finance the aircraft yourself, that you're going to end up with very low capital costs, but you account for throughout the year. So when you compare us to the other guys we compete with, you see the benefits flowing through very differently. So we have this one-off gain.
They have, you know, the continuous benefit through the life cycle of the aircraft due to the very low capital cost. But in essence, the difference is not as big as we may think. It's just to count it differently and booked differently in the system. But business-wise, at the end of the day, what really matters is what the acquisition cost of the aircraft is, and two, what the financing cost on the aircraft is. And I think we have been benefiting greatly from our credit rating, from our credit as an airline, and also from the asset, the A321neo being the most sought after asset in the world at the moment, better than anything else.
So I think that combination gave, really gave us the access to a very low cost of capital for financing. So that, combined with the acquisition cost of the aircraft, I mean, it largely should be seen as very similar to what the other guys are achieving, but running the model differently.
Okay, thank you. And just one last one. On the Middle East joint ventures, obviously things are mighty quiet in, in Saudi. How are you thinking about the expansion in Abu Dhabi? How are you thinking about the potential opportunities, and is that all just kicked down the road because of the aircraft shortages or, or has the Saudi one gone away anyway? What, what are we thinking about the expansion plan?
Yeah. So with regard to Abu Dhabi, I don't think our medium, long-term ambition has changed at all. So we are looking at Abu Dhabi to be a 50-aircraft operation by the end of the decade. So next five to six years, we would essentially quadruple the business versus the 12 aircraft we have over there. Just to give you an idea, and some encouragement, Wizz at Abu Dhabi required a total capital investment of $50 million, and that's a joint investment between Wizz and our investment local partner, ADQ. And the business is cash positive already. So I don't know how many airlines can you find on the planet that gets to cash positive operation with $50 million invested against the idea.
I mean, the airlines I know of, they have dragged totally different numbers on the equity side. So we feel very comfortable with the investment. Of course, the investment keeps maturing as we are still in the very early phase, but I think we have not seen anything that would derail us from the strategic plan to become a 50-aircraft operation by the end of the decade. With regard to Saudi, yet, Wizz Air remains an inbound carrier to Saudi. We continue to look at further opportunities. Those opportunities have not manifested yet. And if we have anything to report, we will, but there is nothing to report as we speak.
But we continue to penetrate the market through inbound flying.
You did put certain leasebacks in your annual report, but-
Thanks, John.
Yeah. All right.
We've got three questions. Please don't break it. We don't break it.
We've got some remote questions. So the first question is from Sathish Sivakumar from Citi. Satish, do you want to unmute yourself?
Yeah. Can you hear me?
We can. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks again for taking my question. So I got two questions here. So firstly, on that restoring capacity back to Israel, right? Things are still very much uncertain over there. So what is driving this decision to put the capacity back? Is it the competitive pressure, or do you see that as a kind of high-yielding new-market route mix? Or is that the high yielding is what driving that necessity to drive those capacity back? Because going into next year, obviously you do, likely to see constraint on capacity growth. Isn't that, considering that into the picture, isn't better to not to go into that market right now?
And the second one, in terms of engine cycle, I remember back in on, like, on the Analyst Day, they did mention that the cutoff is around 2,500 cycle. Can you just, like, clarify on that, like, on the GTF, and what is the engine cycle threshold? And the engines that are the aircraft that are grounded, 33, what is the average engine cycle there? Yeah. Thank you.
Okay. Well, with regard to capacity, I think the principles around that is true are unchanged. We manage capacity on the base of expected profitability, so whenever we take capacity out or we add capacity back in or new, this is all in consideration of expected financial performance. So, we are making decisions on the base of expected profitability when it comes to allocating capacity. Andrew, you-
On the engine cycles, the threshold is 2,800 cycles, and then there's an interaction between cycle count and the service bulletin that was issued. We're still waiting for the Airworthiness Directive to come out, but we're following the instructions of the service bulletin, which when calculated based upon our utilization, determines which engines are grounded when, and so that's what's driving the ramp-up profile from 33 engines as of January 24th, to the 40 by the end of the quarter, and then the progression into FY 2025, and then the tapering down. So we just follow a calculation based upon which engines are meeting the criteria, and then act accordingly, in line with the safety practices.
So just to clarify, the 40 is the, the final expectation on the grounding based on this 2,800? Yeah. Or do you see-
That's right.
Further change? Okay, got it. Yeah.
And that's.
Okay.
Yeah, that's for the end of this year. And then what we're trying to do, and this is why we're guiding capacity for FY 25, is focus people less on aircraft count because of the things like utilization, because of the things like additional capacity available on the market, and move towards ASK evolution for FY 25.
All right. Yeah. Thank you.
The next question from Jarrod Castle at UBS. arrod, do you want to unmute yourself?
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just coming to the fuel cost, and in particular, the cost of carbon. You know, there's been a benefit with the EU changing the base traffic year from 2010 to 2023, in terms of allocation of free carbon credits. How has this impacted your views on fuel costs in the year, or the financial year 2025? Then secondly, just coming back to the March 2026 ramp-up, I mean, you referred to 30%-40% capacity, you know, to 280-odd aircraft. Putting back this growth, would this be, you know, at all costs, i.e., you know, would you be willing to materially sacrifice your yield to play catch up on capacity?
And you know, what would happen if, you know, calendar 2025 was actually a down year? How would you see that ramp-up? And I guess related, I mean, you know, you always refer to, you know, the cash balance, but I think, you know, what investors are more focused on is net debt, frankly, which continues to go up. So, you know, how would you manage that if indeed, 2025 was a down year, just given where your, where your net debt, EBITDA currently is? Thanks.
Let me take the second one. So, I think, you know, we are still in the business of creating shareholder value, and it is delivered through growth and profitability. So that's the basic model, and, you know, at any given point in time, that should be the guiding principle. And, I mean, things can happen, and, you know, we may have to encounter hiccups here or there, but this is really how we are looking at the business. So assuming a largely different summer 2025 or fiscal 2026 than what we are contemplating at this point in time.
Of course, we would need to make adjustments, if we fear that, you know, in a given context, we would blow ourselves out of the principles, due to the very high growth. I mean, I think Airbus would love this to defer aircraft because they probably say in hindsight, I mean, let's not forget we ordered this aircraft in Dubai a long time ago, when Airbus was depressed, and they needed, they needed an aircraft order, and we benefited from that, from that transaction. They could sell this aircraft at a lot higher price today. So anything we would defer or forego, I mean, they would love us to do that. So I think that creates kind of this inherent flexibility. But at the same time, you can also think of it differently.
If we have access to such a low-cost asset, why the hell would we give it up? And, you know, then we would rather look for ways of monetizing it, maybe slightly differently versus the, the baseline. I think we would, we would take considerations, you know, all those, all those issues, but, but I think we have an inherent flexibility to adjust, should we have to.
Okay. Jared, in terms of the carbon cost, so Wizz Air, the proportion of free credits that Wizz Air currently benefits from versus the credits that it has to buy to meet its ETS surrender obligations is lower than the rest of the competition. So as the free credits expire, the impact to Wizz will be less than to the other, than to an airline that relies more heavily on the free credits. So the impact financially to us is going to be less as a result of that. So we've already factored that in. We discussed that. I believe there's even a slide in the last quarter that talks about that. So we see that as less of an issue because we're benefiting less from the free credits.
With regards to the cash balance versus net debt, and what happens if the F-25 doesn't play out the way it does, well, we fully expect F-25 and the progression that we're in the direction that we're heading to continue, based upon the impact and the benefits that we've driven into the business and with the performance we're seeing thus far. In terms of net debt, I mean, it will increase because of the proportion of aircraft that we're taking versus the earnings that we delivered in this quarter. So you would expect the net debt to increase, as you point out, in this quarter. But going forward, as profitability returns, the net debt will, and the leverage ratio will come down, and we expect it to.
If to play forward your thesis, it doesn't, you know, that's why we put in place sound risk management policies and balance sheet protection policies, such as our EMTN program, which we've just renewed. And we have capital markets available to us with our investment grade rating. And, like I said earlier, it's not something that we anticipate requiring, but it'll be there in the unlikely event that your scenario comes forward.
Thanks.
We've got a question from Alex Paterson at Peel Hunt. He's typed it, so I'll read it out: Please, could I check your net profit guidance is before any FX gains, as I think Ian said, therefore, if there is an FX gain for the year, the net profit you deliver will be higher than EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million?
That's right.
Great. Thank you very much. That's the end of analyst questions from Atley.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for coming. Have a good day.