Good morning, welcome to the fourth quarter presentation for Norwegian Air Shuttle. My name is Jesper Hatletveit, and I'm the VP of Investor Relations here at Norwegian. Today's presentation will be held by our CEO, Geir Karlsen, and our CFO, Hans-Jørgen Wibstad. It will be followed by Q&A from the audience and the web. Please go ahead, Geir.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Let's get going on the fourth quarter presentation. 2022 was another special year. I think we did relatively well. We're not happy with everything, but we are happy with a lot of things that we did in 2022. We are currently, as we all know, in what we call a low season, but we are getting closer and closer every day into a new high season and a summer season. We are these days very much working on ramping up for, let's say, an increased activity for the months to come. That has been the main focus now for the last month, at least.
Coming out of 2022, we are seeing strong bookings into 2023. We are planning the fleet for the summer coming up. We are planning to fly 81 aircraft this summer, and we did originally plan for 85 aircraft, but due to the delays from Boeing, we have to accept that we will have slightly fewer aircraft into the summer. 2022 came out with an EBIT of one and a NOK 0.5 billion in profit, which we're happy about. If you look at the fourth quarter, we had a loss, EBIT loss of NOK 39 million. We are continuing to keep the strong cash balance. We came out of 2022 with NOK 7.8 billion in cash.
Looking at the cash position as per today, it's in that area still, which is a good thing. We are continuing also to be very punctual. That is something that we have been working very hard to achieve, and we are continuing doing that. Very happy of that. I think that's also very important for the period going forward, where we can build the trust, both from the leisure travelers as well as for the corporate travelers. We're continuing also to win awards. This company has been winning a lot of awards over the years, and it doesn't stop here. We are very happy that we had a couple of wins in the GTA Awards, which is then, awards given by the tourist industry.
We have been talking a lot about the sustainability over the last, let's say 18 months at least. We are continuing that work as well. I will come back to that in a little bit more details. Close to 4.6 million passengers in Q4 with 81.4 load. We have, as we've always, as we have been telling many times as well, been able to reduce the capacity into the low season. We have been between 20% and 30% lower capacity compared to what we were flying back in October. As per today, we are probably more than 30% less capacity in the air compared to then, October.
If you look at, let's say the capacity as I mentioned, this shows that we are actually doing exactly what we have been telling, meaning reducing capacity. If you had looked at the crew situation during the fourth quarter and have a look at the kind of the demand, compared to the supply, we have really managed, in my opinion, to be able to get the flexibility also on the crew side into the operation. Meaning that we have the crew needed in the, in the fourth quarter, and that's also the situation in the first quarter of 2023, and then we will ramp up into the, into the summer season. This is extremely important, in order to create, you know, a good cash flow generation, in the company on a 12 months rolling basis.
It is a balance, though, when you take down the capacity this much to make sure that you keep the market share. We do think that we have actually achieved that, even if you're seeing the closest competitors flying more capacity than what we are doing. If I look at the February numbers, I think the January there is a low point. I think you can expect in February higher load, higher yield, and more passengers than what we had in January. That is some kind of guiding at least in the short in the short term.
As you can see here, we have been able to keep a steady load, close to 80%, as well as a yield that is probably not good enough, but it's steady and where we have expected it to be. Looking at the bookings, this is very encouraging, I have to say. We had the New Year's sales campaign. We were selling more than 1 million tickets in two weeks. This is more than double than what we did last year. Even more important, we are selling it at 23% higher yield compared to last year. Very encouraging.
Even more encouraging is that, you know, the sales activities has continued after the New Year's sales campaign. Looking at where our passengers are booking, it's across the network. It's not only down to the kind of leisure destinations for the summer. It's across the network, both city, domestic, and also the beach destinations. If you're looking today at what we are booking for the summer, we have a higher load than we had on the same time last year, and we have a, certainly a higher yield in the area of between 20% and 25% higher than 2022. It's very, very encouraging what we are seeing these days.
We're also been following the NPS scores, meaning that, you know, what our passengers and others think about the company, and we're happy to say that we are still the most loved and trusted company in Norway amongst our peers. That's very encouraging as well. If you look at the 7-day rolling sales, this is passengers. You can also see the development throughout, you know, the Christmas or the New Year's sales campaign and the fact that it has continued even after that campaign. Into the fleet. Here we have some challenges, mostly due to the fact that Boeing and Airbus are struggling to deliver aircraft these days. That's why we are very happy that we were able to sign up 6 MAXes into the summer.
It's no secret that these are the same MAXes as Flyr were flying. We are very happy that we have been able to reach a very attractive deal on these aircraft. These aircraft will be ready for the summer season. This means that we will then have 81 aircraft in operation this summer. Then it will take it down to 77 by the end of 2023. This is due to the fact that we are starting to redeliver the leased aircraft that we have in our fleet. The 6 MAXes will have a fixed lease rate. There is no escalations for the remaining 11 years of the contract. That means that it's very, very attractive.
There's also no maintenance reserves that will be paid in during the period until redelivery, which is also very attractive. It does show that, you know, Norwegian today has a pretty solid credit standing also amongst the leasing community. We have paid in NOK 2.9 billion into the new build program, and this is aircraft that we start to deliver in 2025. Looking at the delivery schedule today, we will not be surprised if you have some delays at least. What we are doing these days is to consider to extend leased aircraft that we are currently flying, you know, past kind of the re-delivery days, just to make sure that we have the fleet we need for at least for the next two to three years. Over to the financials, Hans-Jørgen .
Thank you, Geir. Good morning, everyone. I will, as usual, go through the figures for the fourth quarter of 2022, as well as the full year 2022. I will start with some key numbers on revenues. The unit revenue came in at NOK 0.64 for the quarter, naturally down due to seasonal impact, like Geir mentioned. It is however up 20% compared with last year. We're quite happy with the unit revenue, taking into account where we are in the cycle.
Passenger traffic came in at 5.6 billion, which is down 28% compared with the quarter, is a reflection of our ability to take down capacity when demand is coming down, which is really one of the key reasons why we're able to deliver a loss, which is quite limited compared with what we have typically delivered in the fourth quarter. Looking at the profits, the earnings, the earnings before tax was minus NOK 80 million, as kind of historically quite a good number for the quarter, reflecting again our ability to take down capacity and manage cost. The result, and I will revert to that in a minute, is also impacted by exploration of some CashPoints.
I will bring a few comments to that later in the presentation. The CASK for the for the quarter came in at 0.47. For the year, it came in at 0.44. We are targeting a reduction for 2023 of between 5% and 10%. I think that is also a reflection of what we're able to. We will scale up our capacity next year. We had some special events in the in 2022 that we are not expecting in 2023, including some additional wet leases. There were some disruptions in the production during the summer, in particular, due to the European kind of issues on in airports, et cetera.
Of course, we're driving cost continuously down, and we have a lot of focus on that as we're moving into kind of a more normalized situation. The CASK figure, comparing that with the level of Q3 is also impacted naturally due to seasonal impact by issues such as de-icing and also some third-party costs related to our distribution, which was at a higher level than what we had wanted it. 0.47, we're not happy with it, but we understand the reasons why, and we're driving very hard to improve that as we move through 2023. Balance sheet. As Geir mentioned, a strong balance sheet.
We've been able to conserve cash during the year and also during the quarter, coming out of the quarter with NOK 7.8. We're about the same level as we speak. Happy to see that we're continuing the important work of conserving liquidity, which is very important for our ability to ramp up and develop the company as we move forward. Just to mention also, we've been able to optimize our capital structure in the first quarter by repurchasing NOK 485 million of bonds, the retained bond, retained claims bond. That is a... That was repurchased at a price of 72.5% of par. Really good deal.
We're making a small profit, just less than NOK 10 million as a one-off, but on a running basis, we will be saving net about NOK 30 million per year just by virtue of lower interest expenses. That's the way to utilize our balance sheet and optimizing our capital structure, given that we have a very strong and solid cash position. A little bit more on the earnings. Top line, operating revenue, NOK 4 point, nearly NOK 5 billion, NOK 4.969 million. We are ending up with, as Geir said, an EBIT of minus NOK 39 and a profit before tax of NOK 80. We have a small tax expense this year, this quarter. Overall, a quite a good result. Just a few comments on that.
You will see that other revenue is up, it says NOK 493 million, and that, as again, has to do with the void of CashPoints, which is part of our accounting principles and relating to CashPoints that were earned in 2018 and 2019. That's kind of part of the business, but a lot of that, of course, as they expire, was taken in the fourth quarter. Fuel is still at an elevated level, but still it's been coming down about $100 per ton compared with the third quarter and also $200, more than $200 compared with the second quarter. It's moving in the right direction. I'll come back. We've done some hedging as well, and that we're very happy with.
Other than that, on the operating expense side, I mentioned, it's up. The other operating expenses is up from NOK 515 - NOK 563. That's largely due to kind of seasonal effects like de-icing. On a full year basis, NOK 18.9 billion of revenues, an EBIT of NOK 1.5 billion of profit, and a net result before tax of NOK 1.056 billion. Quite a good result. There are a couple of things to observe there, in particular, that are kind of things to note. One thing is the aviation fuel, which is very, very high compared with what we saw, you know, when we planned 2022 at the end of 2021. That's impacting the result by more than NOK 2 billion negative.
On the other hand, we did this very, very good deal with Boeing in the second quarter, which created reversal of previously paid prepayments of NOK 2.1 billion, which runs in the positive direction. A little bit further into deep diving on the cost level. We have a lot of focus on that as we will guide also we'll mention later, we are targeting a reduction of 5%-10% for the year, for 2023. We're happy to see that fuel level has come down. Fuel cost has come down, but still at a much higher level than we've seen historically.
We've been also able to hedge 25% of expected consumption in 2023 at quite attractive rates, $880 per ton on average. We're also seeing that the spot rate has come down, so it's in the low 900s at the moment, but that's of course fluctuating a lot, you know, day by day and week by week. For those very interested, we're using hedge accounting when we are accounting for the hedges, the positions that we have there. Other elements in the CASK development, which ended up at 0.47 NOK for the quarter, I mentioned for scale is an important part.
We're flying significantly less than we did in the third quarter. And then we have these kind of special things I mentioned, de-icing, some distribution cost, and there are so also some elements of periodic effects in particular on the personnel side in the quarter. Balance sheet. I've talked quite a bit about that. We're quite happy with the balance sheet. The main movements on the balance sheet this quarter from last quarter is the change in the US dollar exchange rate. The dollar is still high, but at a lower level than the second quarter.
That is recorded, of course, our aircraft as well as our debt is largely denominated in dollars, so that's impacting the total amount there. We're very happy to see that the holdback, which has been a really, really big topic for us, is down to 39%, and that level was above 100% when we started the year. That's also a reflection of our better credit standing, that we're actually able to negotiate with our major acquirers better terms, and we've seen that ratio coming down, and that is, of course, one of the key explanations why we've been able to conserve cash during the year.
Net interest-bearing debt is down by NOK 346 million, or has improved by NOK 346 million, again, reflecting a lower U.S. dollar rate, which again has an impact on our debt. But we're happy to see that being at a very moderate level, even especially without the aircraft financing, but also including the aircraft financing and the way that is recorded. That gives us kind of a good confidence going into 2023 about our financial robustness. I mentioned the bonds, which will have a positive impact. First of all, we're able to acquire them at attractive rates, we believe, recording a small profit.
We're also on a run rate basis, we're re-reducing our interest expenses and thus improving our EPS as we move forward. We're able to do that as we are. That's a way to optimizing the balance sheet and utilizing some of the, you know, strong cash position that we are in at the moment. Sorry, that was a bit quick. Just a final couple of words on the cash flow. I mentioned a strong cash position from the quarter. We had NOK 8.2 billion going into the quarter, ending last quarter. We've had reasonably moderate changes since then. Of course, the holdback again has an impact, good impact, as well as our ability to conserve cash and take down capacity.
The operating activities is plus NOK 56 million. Investing activities is very limited at NOK 27 million. We have, of course, the repayment of the leasing debt of NOK 450. As I mentioned, we are coming out of the year with a slightly higher cash balance than we started the year, despite having paid in NOK 825 million of cash to Boeing. Again, underlying how we are able to conserve cash and build for and be pre-prepared for a solid future for Norwegian. Thank you. Geir?
Okay. The way forward. I just want to spend a couple of minutes on sustainability, which is a very high focus area for Norwegian. It has been for a while. Here you can see, you know, the main areas. We have set a target to reduce emissions, as you all know, by 45%, up to 2030. In-flight waste is an area. It's not the most important area that will bring us, or to make us able to reach that target, but a sustainable aviation fuel is. The only way, as we see it, we can reach that target is to, you know, get production of SAF going.
That's why we are also spending a lot of time in Norwegian to, you know, towards the, you know, politicians, towards, you know, companies that are actually exploring this opportunity, both in Norway and outside of Norway, to make sure that we can find solution together with the potential producers, governments, politicians, and the airlines, to get going to produce this type of fuel. We are currently in, I would say, negotiations, both on, let's say, on offtake agreements, on SAF, as well as exploring how we can help to incentivize, you know, these companies to start the production of this type of fuel. This is extremely important. We are seeing also EU taking measures on this area.
First of all, you know, the free quotas that we have currently will be reduced to zero by 2026. The only way we can kind of make sure that we can kind of have a sustainable operation with the fuel prices that are on let's say, livable levels, we need to start to produce SAF for the years to come. That's a very, very, very important area for Norwegian. We have also been working lately on to get a better rating. We have been rated by this Carbon Disclosure Project, which is an independent institution, one of the big ones, that are doing assessments of companies in different industries.
I think they have done assessments for, let's say, between 20 and 25,000 companies recently. We had a D score. That's not good. Today we have a B-minus score, and we will continue to try to even improve that. Sustainability is important. If you go further, and then you look at how we are, you know, where we are spending our time these days, we are spending the time in lots of areas. One of them is to make sure that we are even more attractive for the corporate travelers. This is an area that we have been focusing on during the last 12 months, and we are now starting to see, to really see the results.
The share of total revenue coming now from the corporate market has increased by 52% over the last quarter, which we are very happy to see. Why? I think we have a better product than before. I think we certainly have the punctuality and the reliability as these corporate travelers would expect. We are beating our competitors on these areas, and we have been doing that for a while now. Very happy to see that.
We have also been talking to many, many, many big corporates over the last months, and we are now seeing that more and more of them are now saying that more than 50% of their employees are now flying with Norwegian. We are continuing to develop the relationship with Widerøe, and we are getting closer and closer to kind of starting to see results of that cooperatorship. I think we should expect even more coming out of that relationship for the months to come. Do remember that we are the most loved and trusted airline in Norway. Very important. That's why we have also been looking into the frequent traveler program, Norwegian Reward. This is a great program.
It has been developed over many, many years, and now we are planning to take it to the next to the next level. This is something that I have been promising in this room for a while, and now it's here. We are planning to launch some news during the next very few weeks to the left side there, where we are bringing in new benefits. I think that reward program in Norwegian is undersold. It's not understood by many enough, and now we are going to do something about that. We are bringing in new rewards in addition to what we already have. Even more importantly, we are now bringing in the top level. We have not named it yet. That will be done very soon.
This is for the, for the frequent travelers, meaning travelers that are flying more than 32 flights a year. We are now throwing in all the benefits to these, to these travelers in addition to new benefits that we are now bringing in. This is to make sure that, you know, the frequent travelers will have a even more seamless journey. It will have a more, you know, better customer experience when they are flying with Norwegian from the time when they book the tickets until they have arrived to their destination. I'm not going to go through the details because this is supposed to be some kind of a teaser, but it will be launched during this quarter.
We have been planning this for more like a year now. We are also planning to bring this reward and loyalty program also to the next level. What the ambition is now is to create the best loyalty program in the Nordics, independent of industry. We're going to build a multi-partner loyalty program consisting of many more partners and many more services that we are going to bring into this. This is not something that we have been figuring out the last week. We have been working on this for the last year. This will take a little bit more time to launch, but I really hope that we can launch it and share much more news about this during the second quarter of 2023.
This is very exciting and something very new, we are now building something kind of a little bit outside of the airline where we are going to use the digital currency, the CashPoints that we have in Norwegian. Very excited about it. Just to sum up, we feel that we are very well positioned in 2023. I think the results for 2022 shows that the solid financial position that we have in Norwegian today, we are very much looking forward to the rest of 2023. We are doing some kind of guiding today. We are guiding on ASK 33 billion kilometers, which is the ASK up 24% from last year.
We are guiding a higher unit revenue than what you have seen in 2022. We are not exact in the number, but we are certainly guiding a higher unit revenue. As Hans Jørgen said, you know, we had a CASK in Q4 of NOK 0.47. We are definitely not happy with that. We have to realize that we have pressure, I would say, on the cost side of this business as all other airlines also have. We just need to make sure that we do whatever we can to keep the CASK down. That's why we have set the target, which we believe is realistic, to reduce the CASK in 2023 by 5%-10% compared to 2022.
This is very, very important, but I think we have to realize that due to the inflation, due to the increased interest rates, and not at least, due to the high oil price and thereby the jet fuel price. A relatively weak Norwegian krone compared to especially dollars, we are under pressure. That applies to everyone, and we just have to make sure that we do the best out of it. This is, you know, resulting in higher ticket prices, unfortunately for our customers. But we will do whatever we can, and the target is now set 5%-10% reduction compared to 2022. By that, I think we will end the presentation, Jesper. If there are any questions, we are more than happy to answer.
We open up with questions from the audience.
Thank you. Kenneth Sivertsen from Pareto. Actually, a long list of questions, but I will limit them for a few. First of all, the business focus you are now introducing in, you are not afraid that this will come on the expense of the cost and the cost position and thereby also making Norwegian more landlocked to the Nordics going forward? Could you utilize digital tools to solve these kind of issues possible?
I think when you, when you see what kind of benefits, we are bringing in, to attract even more of the corporate travelers, I think you will see that it doesn't necessarily drive cost, which has been an ambition when we have been doing the thinking about this. I don't really think so.
I agree with you. I think that net effect should be highly positive. Secondly, on the new reward, you mentioned that, you mentioned bringing in external partners. Is that also on the thinking on the ownership of this program?
Yes.
Perfect. On the market side, I guess the number speaks for itself on the booking and also. Could you allude a bit on the various Nordic markets around how they're developing on the competitive situation?
I think if you look at, let's say Norwegian market is working well, so is the Danish market. Sweden and Finland, a little bit more challenging. Beach destinations are working very well these days. If you look at, you know, you could, you could almost say that, you know, where are we putting the capacity, new capacity? We're bringing in 11 new aircraft for this summer. They will mostly be split between Norwegian and, no, sorry, Norway and Denmark, not so much in Sweden and Finland. We have, though, been focusing a lot on Finland lately. We have actually reduced the capacity, that is now starting to give results on the bottom line.
I think if you look at, if you look at the capacity we are putting in, it's kind of, it's a mix between kind of, you know, new destinations. The new destinations will be split between, let's say, 50%, city and 50%, you know, leisure. The cities will mostly be kind of, around the Mediterranean. Denmark, Norway working very well. We need to do some work in Sweden and Finland.
Okay, one final question here. On the sustainable push that you also now see in increasing and going forward to 2026, looking at your fleet, it seems like you should be well-positioned relatively to other airlines. Any thoughts around this one, given the less fuel burn you have?
I think you're right. You're right. I think, you know, looking at the MAX, we are saying 14% less fuel burn. I think it's actually, you know, higher than that. I think it's closer to 16-17% based on the measurements that we have done. That's a factor. I think that, you know, when we are bringing in MAXes, and if you look at... No, it doesn't show, but there is a gray kind of thing on that graph showing the number of MAXes that we will have going forward, and that is increasing rapidly over the next years.
I think, you know, to be the most sustainable airline or the or the sustainable option alternative is something that we need to try to get to because I think that's going to be a competitive advantage as well. I think, you know, the fact that you have, I mean, you have new aircraft, which is good for the passengers, but it's also good for sustainability, and I think that's going to be a competitive advantage, and that's what we will try to aim for for the years to come.
Thank you.
Hans Jørgen Elnæs, analyst at WINAIR AS. A couple of questions from me. Your main point of sale for the summer 2023 campaign, you answered a little bit on that. Can you elaborate a little more on what is the main markets and how much of your campaign is deriving from point of sale outside of the Nordics, so from Europe inbound to the Nordics? What is the fare levels that you have sold so far better than last year? In that respect, how much better?
If you look at the New Year's sales campaign, as I mentioned, we sold more than 1 million tickets in two weeks. Looking at the yields, they are, as I said, Between 20% and 25% higher than what we did last year, and we sold more than double number of tickets in that campaign. If you look at... The good thing with what we sold is that it's pretty spread all over the network really. It's not only to the leisure destinations.
If you look at the sales, you know, in general coming out of the New Year's campaign and into, let's say, rest of January and now into February, we are approximately 20% higher on yield this year compared to the same period last year, and the load is also higher, significantly higher, I would say, compared to the same period last year. You know, the point of sale and is by far majority in, let's say, in the Nordics. I mentioned based on countries, what's the strongest markets, Norway, Denmark is where, you know, we are doing best.
Okay. The last one on sustainability. As the ETS and the incentives of CO2 emissions will end in 2026, do you have any plans on hedging on CO2 emission going forward?
Well, we have been considering it. I think you will also see us be a little bit more upfront, actually buying quotas. I have, you know, as per today, considering to buy kind of forward. We have not done any hedging on ETS quotas yet. We are considering it. We are kind of a little bit curious.
We have seen what comes out of EU as their plans, you know, both on reducing the free quotas by 2026, but also how they're going to kind of build in a structure where you can, you know, if you have sufficient initiatives in order to reduce emissions, you know, they could be willing to kind of cover the difference between SAF and fossil fuel, if you meet the criteria. That's kind of where we are putting the focus these days.
I think the issue here is how much SAF do we actually going to receive for use in the aviation industry? We know particularly one of your big markets in Denmark, in Copenhagen, Kastrup, they are very careful in predicting, you know, the supply of SAF going forward. That's why the CO2 emission, the quotas will probably increase quite a lot going forward.
You know, I think if you see what we have been pushing for, not only in Norwegian but led through NHO towards the government and what we need to see happen and what we would like to see is that, you know, the taxes that we are paying, whether it's a passenger tax, a CO2 tax and so on, the government should turn around and then try to incentivize production of SAF. I think, and we have said it many times, we need to create hundreds of jobs even in Norway, and we know that there are projects on its way in Norway to start production of this.
I have to say, being a little bit negative towards our own government, but, you know, what EU is now doing is actually pretty much what we have been pushing for towards the Norwegian government. We really hope that we can get going. Unless we get going on it, and as you say, Hans Jørgen , the, you know, the quantum of SAF produced today is nothing or is close to nothing and it's not that far away to 2030.
We can open up from some questions from the web. We'll start with Achal Kumar from HSBC. First question is regarding liquidity. How much more liquidity does management expect from the unfolding of credit card holdbacks, so reduced holdback? You're having comparatively strong liquidity, and do you have any plans for usage of this cash? Any plans of inorganic growth?
In terms of how we have been able to reduce the holdback has been, as I said, a very important thing for us in 2022. We expect that ratio to improve somewhat during 2023, it's a gradual process to get the acquirers comfortable with our position given where we were back in 2021. We will be able to release liquidity on that basis during 2023, not to the extent that we have seen a big shift from 2021 to during 2022. In terms of our conserving cash, you know, being in this industry, it's important to have a strong balance sheet. History has told us that. We will utilize that cash in a very sensible way.
We have done repurchasing of bonds, which I think is making our balance sheet more efficient. We will save cost and improve our EPS on that basis. We are also having an aircraft order coming up. We have ordered 50, option 30 aircrafts to be delivered 2025 - 2030. We are very comfortable about getting those financed. On the other hand, but also it's good to have some cash reserved to optimize also the structure of debt versus cash in the financing of those aircrafts. We're quite comfortable with our current financial position. We will consider that as we move forward, you know, over the next couple of years.
No comment to the other part of that question.
Okay, fine. On the network planning, could you share your growth plans a bit more in details, like where are you adding capacity, any new bases, and what does this imply for profitability?
I think we have really covered that question, yes. I think, you know, new bases, we are opening up a Barcelona base. It's going to be seasonal, at least to start with, this year. We are putting a few aircraft there. We were planning to start a base in Riga, which was meant to be kind of the first step outside of the Nordics again. Unfortunately, due to this is only due to the delivery issues that we have with Boeing, we will postpone that base opening at least for now. Hopefully we can get going again in 2024.
Okay. Okay, we move on from to questions from Ole Martin Westgaard at DNB Markets. First one on the CASK. What is the main uncertainties on the CASK guidance range for 2023, and what is your key drivers to achieve your cost savings?
I think we are on a good path when it comes to CASK. We have set the targets here today, 5%-10% reduction, and that is in an environment when you have inflations around us between, let's say, 4% and 10%. In real terms, it's quite, in my opinion, relatively aggressive. We don't really see, you know, many uncertainties outside kind of the macro environment and the fuel prices, so kind of the cost that we can control, will be managed in a good way.
I, you know, talking to other airlines, I was participating in an event in the U.S. last week where I met many of the U.S. airlines, and they are seeing exactly the same picture. They are kind of, indicating, at least in that event, a cost increase in the area of, let's say, 3%-10%. It is a struggle, but it is a struggle for all of us. I don't, you know, outside that, we, I think we can manage well.
Okay. Going further to the fleets, how many aircraft are you taking delivery from Boeing from here on in 2023, and is there any risk in delays of the 2023 aircraft, so that they delay after the summer?
Yes. We, we have taken delivery of 1 MAX in January. That's already on Gardermoen. We are taking deliveries of 2 in February, 1 in March, and 1 in May. That's all.
In addition to the six other ones.
In addition to the six that we have signed up just recently. Then, we might have deliveries into the fall. As we all know, we don't like to have deliveries into the fall. We would like them into the spring. That is a discussion that we will have with the leasing companies, as well as with Boeing. Will there be the, you know, a risk of delays in 2024? Yes. This is not over in 2023. It will continue into 2024, and that's why we are considering to extend, you know, the leases that we currently have in order to make sure that we have the fleet we need and the kind of growth that we have been planning for the next two to three years.
Okay. Last question from him regarding competitive landscape. How do you see the competitive landscape post the bankruptcy of Flyr?
Well, I think we don't really see that many changes since last time we were here. What if we are seeing anything, we are seeing, you know, probably the, you know, the closest competitor, SAS, is flying more than us in capacity. We have chosen to fly less. We are seeing players like, for example, Eurowings in, at Arlanda, is not coming in with the capacity that they have been telling they would come in with. We're also seeing that, you know, Ryanair is doing what they're doing in Copenhagen. They're not starting up the Copenhagen base this year, which they were planning to do. If anything, I mean, it's probably less, you know, of the competitors coming in if you compare it to, let's say, six months ago.
It's a tough market.
Yeah, definitely. Okay, that was the last question, so if there are no further questions from the audience, we conclude the session. Thank you.