Welcome to the fourth quarter presentation for Norwegian. My name is Jesper Hatletveit, and I am the new VP of Investor Relations here at Norwegian. Today's presentation will be held by our CEO and CFO, Geir Karlsen. It will be followed by a Q&A from the audience and the web. Please go ahead, Geir.
Thank you, Jesper, and good to see you all. Welcome to this presentation of the fourth quarter results of 2021. I think I would like to say that it's good to kind of close the chapter of 2021. It has certainly been a special year, and I guess we can all say a year for the memory books. I think we came out of 2021 in a relatively good way. We are happy to report a profit for the quarter of NOK 117 million. I think we have been through the pandemic pretty.
You know, we have been doing pretty well when it comes to preserving liquidity, and we have done that in the fourth quarter as well. We're actually able to generate cash in the fourth quarter, taking the cash balance up to NOK 7.7 billion. We saw that you know, we had quite a few London Gatwick slots, and quite a few of them we are not planning to use going forward. There's a lot of talk about legacy here, but sometimes legacy is also a positive and this is one example of it. I'm very happy that we were able to sell the slots that we are not planning to use.
We still have, you know, all the slots that we need going forward on London Gatwick. Also happy to see that we were rated as the best Nordic airline when it comes to punctuality for 2021, number three in Europe. This is something that we are working on every single day to improve and we will continue to do that through 2022 as well. Now we are in a kind of a challenging quarter in the first quarter, so now it's all about, you know, making sure that we are ready for the summer season, and we are seeing very good signs when it comes to bookings into the summer season. In the quarter we brought 3.1 passengers with us.
Norwegian today is approximately 3,600 employees. We also increased the ASK or the capacity through the quarter with approximately 18%. If we look at kind of the sales going on these days, I mean, we entered the quarter, the fourth quarter last year in a positive note and we saw, due to an ease up of the restrictions, into the fourth quarter that we saw a pretty solid ramp-up in bookings, especially for October. October numbers for Norwegian were positive on the bottom line, so we made money in October. We went into November and the traditional low season, where you saw the sales coming down a bit, as expected.
Then we had the Omicron coming against us late November into December, and we saw a dramatic drop as you can see on the graph on the right-hand side there. What we did then, we were planning to fly Q4 with approximately 80% of the capacity that we had available, and then we had to take decision then on how much we would need to cut, and we cut an additional approximately 27%, then going into January and February. That is where we are at today. We are now running the company with, you know, in the area of 60%-65% of full capacity due to the demand picture.
However, we are now seeing that we have, you know, an ease up on the Omicron virus again, and we are seeing now that the bookings are really coming our way. The red line here is the development in number of PAX on a seven-day rolling basis. Even more, you know, positive is the revenue that is in relative terms increasing a lot more than the sale of the number of PAX. That shows us that, you know, the passengers are now booking more forward, so the booking curve is kind of going out a little bit.
It shows that the passengers are starting to book for the summer season, and you could say, at least indirectly, that the yields are, you know, it definitely going up, but as such, you can also say that the increase in fuel price is starting to be implemented into the ticket prices as well. We have taken a huge benefit of the Power by the Hour solution that we negotiated last year. For 2021 as a whole, we have a saving in lease costs in the area of $40 million-$45 million, and these savings will continue into the first quarter as well, as we have Power by the Hour for the whole fleet for the whole quarter.
Sales is looking very promising, and we are also seeing that if you compare the yield we are doing now on July for 2022 compared to the same yield we were looking at in 2029, the yield today for July as it looks now is more than 30% up. What we have also been doing, this is a very high focus area for Norwegian these days, is that we have managed to get into a cooperation with Neste, and we have made a kind of a product where the corporate travelers of Norwegian will be able to to buy sustainable aviation fuel, SAF. This will be done by them then covering the difference between SAF and fossil jet fuel.
By that, they can take that into their own accounts and measure it against their own target. By that, you could say that, you know, they can take the benefit of actually buying SAF, while we will put more of the SAF into the wing, and thereby we will also take down the emissions for the airline. This is, as I said, a high focus area, and this is something that we will continue to work on going forward. As per today, this is meant firstly to the corporate travelers, and then we will take it from there, go further in, you know, through 2022 and see how we can develop this further.
They have also taken a decision internally where all admin flights that we're doing in Norwegian will be treated the same way, meaning that we will also buy the SAF and thereby take down the emissions. SAF is reducing the emissions with more than 80% compared to normal fossil jet fuel. To the financials. The yields are increasing to 0.57. Obviously, this is not something that we are happy with, but it at the same time, it's developing the right way. RASK is going up 12%-13% to 0.44. Ancillary, 1.44 per pax. Not happy with that either. You know, ancillary per pax is normally coming down during the seasonality into Q4 and especially Q1.
The target on ancillary is close to NOK 200 pax, and we hope to be able to see that when we are now entering into more of the high season. On profits, as I said, happy to report a profit also on EBITDAR. On CASK, we are coming down if you compare it to last quarter, meaning the third quarter of 2021, from 0.51 to 0.49. Obviously, the CASK is too high, but that's also a result of the fact that we are flying with, as I said, you know, 60%-70% of the capacity.
I think, you know, if you, if you take if you're looking from the second quarter of 2022 towards the end of the year, and you use only one decimal on CASK, you should definitely see something saying 0.4, and then you would have to figure out on what side of 0.4 we will end up. But we have an aggressive target on CASK, and then time will show whether we can meet that. As I said, you know, the Power by the Hour solution is giving us some help in Q1. I'm estimating the savings in Q1 to be in the area of NOK 100 million-NOK 120 million.
That's very helpful when we have the demand picture, especially in January and the part of February that we have behind us. We are continuing to strengthen the balance sheet. The book equity is up with more than NOK 700 million for the quarter, which is good. I have already mentioned the cash balance. What you're seeing here is a quarter where the top line is going up with 32% to NOK 2.5 billion. If you look at the cost side on all the elements there, and you look at the big picture, it's up approximately 18%. That is exactly the way the ASK is going up for the quarter.
You could say that, you know, outside fuel, a few of the items is going up less than 18%, while the fuel is, in real terms, capacity adjusted, increased by approximately 32%. That takes us down to the EBITDAR, and we have other losses and gains, NOK 201 million is a positive. That includes the sale of the London Gatwick slots, which takes us down to a positive EBITDAR of NOK 114 million. We have net financial items. That includes, I would say, the last parts of the restructuring effects, and we have spent, you know, the last six months also cleaning up the corporate structure in the company. We have taken out, I would say, liquidated, closed more than 50 companies.
I would say the balance sheet as such is now really cleaned up and ready for the quarters to come. Thereby, we're happy that we can come down to NOK 117 million in profit for the quarter and close to NOK 1.9 billion as profit for the full year. Balance sheets, just a few comments. The intangible assets is the deferred tax assets, the carried forward loss. This is hopefully going to be a huge asset for us that we're going to use and spend well when we are now starting to very soon make seriously money. Intangible assets, it's obviously the fleet.
In this quarter, we have added eight aircraft into the balance sheet, both on the asset side and on the liability side. This is aircraft that we have taken delivery of. We have not started to fly them yet. They are all on Power by the Hour. This is aircraft that we are now making ready for the summer season. It's part of the 19-20 aircraft that we are bringing into the fleet now to the summer season. On receivables, I think we could say that we are still not happy with the situation with the credit card companies.
Out of the NOK 2.153 billion, approximately NOK 1.45 billion is holdbacks towards the credit card companies. If you look at that compared to the air traffic settlement liabilities, NOK 1.3 billion, you can figure out the holdback. The holdback as per year end is still above 100%, approximately 109%. The holdback today, however, I mean, it's in the area of 90%. We are finally starting to see good results from all the work that we have been doing towards these credit card holders lately. Not to promise too much, but I think, you know, in a couple of months from now, we should be back to more normal levels.
We are now then talking about the holdback in the area of, let's say, 40%-55%. All the signs we are seeing with the dialogues that we have with these guys is positive and they are now in the process of easing up. We finalized just a few weeks back a new agreement with one of the guys and which took the holdback down to 45%. It's already in motion. On other current liabilities, it is you know, a huge portion of that is cash points, you know, that we owe our dear customers and that is in the area of NOK 2.4 billion.
The book equity is up NOK 744 million, and it also takes the equity percentage up to 17.4%. On the net debt side, the net debt is increasing, as you can see on the right-hand side over there. That is mainly due to the fact that we are taking in more capacity, eight aircraft into the fleet. Cash flow, not very exciting, but you can see at least, you know, the 237 includes the London Gatwick slots. On the finance activities, it is repayment of debt, NOK 23 million-NOK 24 million on the own aircraft and the rest on the leased ones. On the way forward, I mean, we have a very strong position in the markets that we are flying. That applies to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
Back in 2019, we were number one or number two when it comes to ASK in the different markets. 2022, when we are moving forward now, will show the position we are taking there. We have been following the brand metrics very closely the last six months. There's no doubt that, you know, during the reconstruction of the company, we took a hit and the brand value as such came down. We have been working very hard over the last six months in order to improve that. Looking at the metrics as per today, we have a massive improvement, and we are almost back where we should be.
We have also come up to a level where we are competing with the other guys the way we should do. This is a really important measure we are working on going forward as well. We have seen a massive improvement from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, and we are seeing the same tendency now. Obviously, it helps with the punctuality that we have been seeing lately, again, ranked number one in the Nordics for 2021. We have had very few cancellations through the pandemic. I think we have been doing, you know, quite well, and also compared to the competitors. Building the brand is very important.
I mean, you can spend a lot of money on marketing, but the real building of the brand is coming from, you know, giving the customers a good experience when traveling with Norwegian. We have a very strong reward program, 4.2 million members in the Nordics. We know that the members are the most frequent travelers, obviously. They're also giving us a higher value than the passengers that are not members. We also know that for each cash point used, we have more than NOK 4 of increased new revenue coming towards us. This is definitely something that we will take very well care of.
We are looking continuously to how we are setting up the reward program and how we could also potentially improve it going forward. For this summer, we have 270 routes for sale. And the routes you're seeing there, that is the routes that we are planning to fly. When booking a ticket for the summer with Norwegian today, you will be taken care of and brought to your destination. On the fleet, this is a new way of presenting the fleet, by the way. We have you know 51 aircraft in operation you could say. In Q4, we operated I guess between 40 and 45 of them. And then we are now bringing in 19 new aircraft.
They are not new, but they are now new to our fleet. It's going to be a mix with majority of NGs. Then we have the two MAXs that is already with us ready to operate. Again, we have a saving estimated to approximately NOK 120 million for Q1 on Power by the Hour. On all these 19 aircraft, we do also have Power by the Hour next winter. We have the flexibility that we need also for the coming winter.
That is very important, and it also takes care of the kind of issues that we have been telling you guys about when it comes to the fact that we would like to kind of be more flexible on capacity and thereby be able to take out the capacity in low season and also be able to take out the cost associated with that capacity in the same season. We have already started the planning for 2023, and we have come quite far in that planning. The target now is to continue the growth in the company, and we are estimating that we will next summer, 2023, have a fleet between 80 and 85 aircraft.
We are still planning for our growth, and all the growth we are bringing in from now on will be with what we call new technology. It will be brand-new aircraft, and we are already in the market trying to source these aircraft. We feel that, you know, the market for aircraft today is tightening, meaning the prices are going up. We still feel there is a window to come for the next at least month or two where you can secure a capacity for, let's say from 2021 onwards. Next year, I think you will see us flying 80-85 aircraft, and we have already specified the network that we are going to fly with this extra capacity.
The network we will most likely select is, you know, routes that we have been flying before. We know them. A small portion of them will be, I guess, a bet on new destinations. Time will then show when and where, you know, we will end up as such. That is the fleet. Just to summarize, I think, you know, the bookings as I went through is looking very promising. The first quarter, meaning the current quarter, will be a challenge, which it will be for most of the guys around. We are still working on preserving the liquidity. We have done a good job so far.
I think we will do a good job on that in the first quarter as well. We are seeing that you know for the bookings you know passengers are starting to book more forward. The yields are going up. We have a very clear plan now on how we are going to kind of do this towards the summer. PBH as mentioned is still with us. I think we could also say that you know with the PBH next summer we have secured the flexibility on the fleet side and I'm very happy to say that we have actually now also secured the same situation on the crew side.
Meaning that we already know as per today that we will be able to take out the cost both on the fleet and on the crew side during the coming winter. That is exactly the flexibility that we would like to have, and the work has already now started to make sure that we can have the same solution when we are talking about the winter 2023 to 2024. By that you could say that we have the plan already for this year, and the focus going forward now will be for 2023 and into 2024. We know that, you know, as per today, looking at the cost level in the company, we are not happy with it.
It's a little bit of a challenge when you are running the business with 60%-65% capacity to be able to take out, you know, to take the cost down as well. I think you will see the result of the work that we have been doing when we are getting into the high season. We will make sure that we do whatever we can to be to come into an even better position when we are having the fleet we need and running into 2023. I think that part of this business will be. It is a cost game. I think we need to be as competitive as we can.
We need to be prepared to meet whoever decides to come into the markets that we are flying. We are not there yet, but we are not very far away either. Time will show how aggressive we can be and at what level we will end up when we are back with a kind of a normal market. I think that was it.
Okay.
From me, Jasper. If maybe we have some questions, I guess.
Thank you, Geir. We will open up for Q&A. We will start with a Q&A from the audience, and then we will follow up with some questions from the web. Please wait for the microphone so the stream can hear you.
Hans-Jørgen.
Hans Jørgen Elnæs, WINAIR. You're talking about cost cuts, and the fuel bill is creeping up. The fleet is increasing. Hedging now is maybe not the best time to do it. Will you look into that going forward? Secondly, we note that some airlines in Europe, they are also starting hedging on CO2 emission. Is that something that we can see Norwegian do as your fleet is growing and the emission of CO2 is going up, and the cost too?
Hans-Jørgen, please repeat your second one.
We see that in some airlines in Europe, they are hedging on CO2 emission.
Yeah.
My question to you is, will Norwegian look into that kind of instruments as you grow and the emissions increase and the cost for the emissions are going sky high?
Understood. I think when it comes to hedging, I think it's fair to say that when we came out of the reconstruction, it was, you know, we needed some time in order to secure credit lines to do hedging. Happy to say, I actually didn't say it during the presentation, that we have now finally secured the credit lines that we need, and I think we can now hedge up to 70%-80% of the total consumption that we have for 2022, or at least for the next 12 months. This is something that we will look into. Obviously, at an oil price of $92-$93, should we hedge now? Should we wait? That is a question, as you're also saying.
Normally, in a normal situation, we have been hedged, let's say between 20-30% and 50% of the consumption 12 months forward. We will just see how we play it now. Right now, we are not hedged, as we have said. I would say, looking at you know, the closest competitors, they are in the same situation, and that is at a high oil price, a good thing, obviously. We will just have to see. When it comes to CO2 emissions and hedging that, we haven't really spent a lot of time looking into that for now.
What we have spent time doing, however, is to see, could we take a more active role in actually making agreements with producers of sustainable aviation fuel. There are quite a few players out there now in the beginnings starting to build facilities in order to produce SAF. They are at very early stages. We would have to see whether we can either invest in that type of companies, give them offtake when they are ready.
I think realistically, you know, with the newcomers at least, we don't see it realistic that they will be able to deliver any significant amounts until, I don't know, 2025, 2026. It's a pretty long investment horizon. We are, I would say, you know, in pretty detailed dialogue with a couple of these type of companies. The problem with SAF today is that, you know, the volume produced is way too low. And even if we are blending it into the jet fuel today, it's at, you know, way too low volumes. We are looking into whether we should take a more active role and then invest horizontally as such.
Okay. We will then go ahead with questions from the web. First question is from Ole Martin Westgaard at DNB Markets.
Mm-hmm.
Can you update us on the situation with Boeing?
I wish I had a lot of good news to tell you about Boeing, but it's not really moving fast. We have still a litigation case ongoing. Not much have happened lately. But I would say we have a dialogue with them and but not much new news to share, to be honest.
Okay. Thank you. What is the optimal fleet level for Norwegian?
Well, as I said today, you know, we will have 70 aircraft in the air this summer. We have set a target to between 80 and 85 next year. I think I've said it many times, a couple of times at least that, you know, we need to come up to a fleet of, let's call it between 80 and 95, 100 as soon as possible. Most likely that will be in 2024, I guess. I think looking at, you know, the network, the history on the network that Norwegian has been flying, that is a level that we are very comfortable with and meaning that it will be profitable.
I think that is also a good level to have as a target when it comes to, you know, getting the cost level down and to get the real CASK, you know, to real scale effects into your cost side of the business. That is 80-85 next year. Maybe move over 90 in 2024.
Okay.
All based on, you know, demand, the market coming our way, and so on.
Okay. One last question from Ole Martin . Are you able to compensate the higher fuel prices in your tickets?
That's a good question. As I said, you know, when we are looking at the yields now, let's say for this summer, and compare that to the same situation back in 2019, the yields are in the area of 30% up. So you could say that it's on its way to build into the ticket prices. But we will just have to see. I mean, you know, if this high oil price will continue, well, we will see.
Okay. We have questions from Petter Nystrøm, ABG Sundal Collier.
Mm-hmm.
Again, you are able to positively surprise on the cash balance. What should we think about cash burn in Q1? Is the cash burn of NOK 150 million-NOK 300 million a month still valid?
I don't know where that is coming from, at least not for this quarter.
I don't know either.
We are not guiding on cash burn this quarter. We have a challenging quarter as everyone else and we will be burning some cash in this quarter, but we are not going out with any specific amount. Part of the cash burn will also be a result of the kind of new agreements we will reach with the credit card acquirers. As I said, you know, we have more than 100% hold back coming into 2022, and then we will see how this is developing. I don't think you will see a lot of results from that in this first quarter, but I think you will definitely see it coming from the second quarter.
As we have showed, you know, we have a quite comfortable cash balance now. We are not concerned at all on that side of this. It's all about, you know, making sure that we play it well over the next, let's say one to two months, and then we have Easter, and then we are getting into the exciting stuff.
Okay. Another question from Petter. You highlight improved bookings for the summer, but how are bookings for the Easter and spring holidays looking?
Easter is looking good. It seems like, you know, we had been expecting when, you know, when we opened up in especially Norway, that you will have a kind of a catch-up effect. We haven't really seen that. We have seen a steadily, let's say, you know, push upwards on the bookings. I think we came into January with the close to approximately 70% load. We have already way past that for February. We are definitely also seeing now the effects on March. You know, Easter is definitely looking good. The booking curve is still relatively short, even if we are seeing more bookings during the summer. I think, you know, I think March will be okay, but then from Easter, April onwards is looking very promising.
Okay. One final question from Petter. Regarding CASK ex- fuel, do you expect this below 0.40 for Q3 of 2022?
For Q3?
Yes.
I said, you know, if you use one decimal, it will be 0.4, and then we will see whether it's on what side of it we will end up for that specific quarter.
Okay
As you mentioned.
Okay. One final question from Jaakko Tyrväinen at SEB. Regarding fare prices looking forward, how do you see the picture of pricing versus load factors? Are the airlines preferring high load or high prices?
Oh, that's a wide question. I mean, it's if you look at the ultra low carriers, they are definitely load players. We are to some extent that as well. I don't have a precise answer on it. I think going back in the years, you know, I guess you can say, Bjørn, that the strategy has been that you are kind of selling a lot of tickets over the winter, you know, then to kind of fund or let's say finance, you know, the low season, and then you are paying it back in the summer season.
Now we are at a position where we have the Omicron, of course, but we are also in the position where we have a very comfortable cash balance, and we can have the luxury of kind of playing it maybe a little bit differently. I think that's also what, you know, what you are seeing us doing these days. I think that is also part of the reason that we're actually seeing a pretty nice increase in yields for the bookings going forward.
Okay. That was the final question, so we then conclude the session. Thank you.
Thank you, guys.