Weather is stopping a few of us to join here today physically. I had some pictures from Gardermoen this day, and I think this morning, I think, you know, the de-icing trucks is getting really active as we speak at Gardermoen. Let's go through the highlights first of all, before I get into the details on how we were doing in the Q3 and how it looks into the Q4. Close to 6.5 million passengers for the quarter, which is good, 87.4% load. And as expected, we are increasing the capacity into the peak season, Q3, coming in from the Q2. We are pushing very hard in region on punctuality and regularity.
And we are very happy to see that we were close to 100% on regularity in the quarter, and very high punctuality as well. 80.1% might seem a little bit low, but in peak season, this is really good, and within one hour, 97% of the aircraft were on time. And that's why we are very pleased to see that we are among top three in Europe over a relatively long period, and definitely through the summer season when it comes to punctuality. That has a high value for the passengers, for the cost level of the company, and for the ground operation in general. EBIT, close to NOK 2.2 billion, and EBT of NOK 2.05 billion for the quarter.
If we take out the Q3 in 2019, where we were actually operating close to double the fleet that we are doing today, this is the best quarter in this company's history over the last 21 years. So, we're very pleased about the, the figure. Unit revenue, high, record high, and the CASK of NOK 0.41. It has been a focus on CASK from the community. This is the CASK that we are running when we are running the company at full speed, full capacity. So, this is the level that we are in when we are in peak season. We have been building a hedge position over the last year, I would say, sitting in a very comfortable position as per today, which is good.
We served all our flights with our own fantastic crew through the summer. No wet leases, which is good, creates complexity, it's costly. We didn't have to do anything of that this summer. We are also pushing on the corporate side of the business, and we have been awarded, you know, the defense contract, as we all know. But we have also onboarded several large corporates over the last year and also including the Q3, as we have that behind us. We also renewed and increased the contract with TUI. So TUI is going to buy 70% of the capacity they need in Norway for the next two seasons. The Widerøe acquisition is going, I would say, you know, in accordance to plan.
We have a dialogue with the competition authorities. Hopefully, we will have some clarity or a final decision by November 17. The loyalty program we are trying to build together with Strawberry is also going in high speed. We are seeing some small delays, so we expect to go live with that cooperation during the Q1 of 2024. So that's the highlight. Going into how we book and how it has been developing over the year. As you can see, we are ramping up coming early into from January and towards the peak season. As you can see, we have had a nice development, I would say, on the total yield.
And as we are building the capacity into the high season, you are seeing that we are also keeping the load relatively stable between 80% and 92%. And that is what you should probably expect also going forward, where we are adjusting capacity in line with the demand. And then, as expected, coming out of the peak month, July, the yield and the load, at least the yield, is coming slightly down. But looking into October and where we are, you know, finalized, in for all practical purposes. And October came out well, and you should expect when we release the figures to see higher load and higher yield compared to September, which is, which is a good thing.
Looking at the bookings in general, as you can see on the right-hand, the right top side here, you can see that, you know, it's the bookings are actually keeping up pretty well, I have to say. We have been running some campaigns over the last couple of months, but it is keeping up relatively well. If you look at the bottom right here, you can see the booked revenue for the last two months of the year. As you can see, we are keeping ourselves on the 2019 level. If you look at the market in general, I guess we are at the 90% level on capacity compared to 2019, but the revenues are already on 2019 level.
It has been on 2019 level for quite a while, and we expect it to continue, even surpassing 2019, if we have some luck during the like next couple of months. The fares we're looking at for the next two months is 15%-20% higher than the same period last year. It can seem like the booking curve is coming out slightly, giving us a little bit more kind of visibility in the short end. And that's why we are quite confident when we are guiding on 2019 as, sorry, on 2023 for the year as a whole. And then of course we have some less visibility going into January, February, and March, and so on. We are continuing to work on the brand.
It's extremely important for us. We are seeing the figures coming strong and improving on the net promoter scores. We are continuing to receive awards. The last one we got was Best Low-Cost Airline in Denmark, and this is important for us, and as we move forward. We would like to be the most loved airline in Europe. We are definitely number one in Norway and number two in the rest of the Nordics. Looking at the market in general and how are we—y ou know, what part of the market is actually working the best? I think the beach destinations in general, meaning from all the four Nordic countries, is working still very well.
As it is normal, you are normally shifting capacity from the beach destination into the domestic market when you get into the low season, and we are doing that as well. And I think we have to say that on the domestic side, I think three out of four countries in the Nordics are working very well, and it's actually looks promising. City destinations is also moving in the right direction. Maybe you should think that, you know, the flip side of having a kind of a weak local currency is that it should be more attractive for foreigners to travel into Norway. We have been seeing an increase in the inbound traffic through 2023.
We are carrying, probably in, by the end of the year, somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 passengers more than what we were doing last year. And it's also pretty exciting to see the routes that we have put in place now out of Tromsø, winter routes, in fact, and we are seeing that the bookings are looking good. We have been selling 20,000-25,000 tickets just lately, and the good thing is that 70% of those bookings are actually inbound traffic, meaning it's foreigners now deciding to travel into Norway, which is a very good sign and something that we were hoping for when we put these routes into the market. So, all in all, good signs. The operations—t he operations in Norwegian is extremely important.
We are doing well, but it's based on very hard work over a long time, and it's extremely important that we can continue this work and to keep the level that we are currently at and even improve it going forward. As I said, we are ranked top three most on-time airline in Europe, and we have been there for quite a while. Regularity close to 100%. We have also been discussing internally whether we should insource some functions of the company. We have insourced, as we have mentioned before, the, let's say, the front of house handling at Gardermoen, our most important base and the really the home base. It is very important when it comes to on-time performance.
And we do know that when we are asking our customers, on time is extremely important. It is very important for the corporate travelers. It reduces the cost if we can be more on time, and not least, it will give us a much higher crew efficiency, where you don't have to have all these, what I call timeouts, when you have the follow-on effects during the day and into the next day in operation. I'll come back to more details on it later. We are continuing to take market share in the corporate market, no doubt about that. We are increasing the number of pax or passengers compared to 2022, and we have a massive increase in revenue.
We have increased in revenue in the area of 10%-20% compared to 2022 on the corporate market. And that is in a market that is really not back to the 2019 levels. It's I would guess it is at 75%-80% back, maybe closer to 75%, I would say, compared to 2019. So, it's no doubt that we are actually taking market share in this, in these segments . We have, as I said, been onboarding what we call multi-country large corporates just lately. A nd it's another sign that when we have the operational, you know, excellence, I would say, with high punctuality, very high regularity, it just makes our product more attractive. And we are seeing the consequences of that, and we are very excited about it.
We will continue to gain more market share in this market going forward. Then, as we have said, you know, earlier, the defense contract is awarded to Norwegian, and which we start up. This will also take the capacity up in Bardufoss and Lakselv, especially, from, let's say, the spring next year. We have also been running a campaign on the small and medium-sized corporates over the last couple of years. Very happy to see that more than 2,300 companies have signed up just in 2023, up 35% from last year. So now it's all about getting these companies activated and to make sure that they actually travel. I think it looks promising.
This is just a snapshot showing on the left side, you know, the Avinor traffic. You have 2019, 2022, and 2023. And as you can see, the traffic level in September this year is actually on 2022 levels, so it hasn't really increased. While if you look at our own traffic figures, we are 10% above September 2022. Meaning, again, this is also kind of an evidence, I would say, that we are taking market share, and we, and we were performing relatively, relatively well. But it also shows that we are not back at 2019 level yet, on, on, on the traffic in, in general. I come a little bit back to, to more details on the cost side of the business, a little bit later. But before that, Hans-Jørgen?
Thank you, Geir, and good morning, everyone. Good to be here, and good to be able to present a good result for Norwegian for the Q3. I'll go into a little bit more detail on the figures, this time, and we see that the revenue is up by 4% compared with a Q3 of 2022 to NOK 0.82 billion, which is a good development. Also taking into account that, in 2022, there was a SAS situation. Passenger traffic is also very good, so the RPK is up 15% compared with the same quarter in last year, to 9.1 billion. So that's reflecting the higher activity level that we have in the business.
As mentioned, the profit, the operating profit is at nearly NOK 2.2 billion, a solid result, and as Geir said, it's the second best in the company's history, comparing a quarter, which is quite different. So, in some ways, it's a very, very strong development, reflecting an operating margin of 25%. I think it's good to reflect a little bit on the EBITDAR, which is probably a good proxy of the underlying performance of the business. And as you can see here, the EBITDAR goes from NOK 1.9 billion - NOK 3.15 billion. So that's a NOK 1.25 billion increase from the same quarter last year. That's a significant number.
And if you look at the whole year, the whole first nine months, the improvement from last year on EBITDAR, which is kind of a good proxy for the underlying profitability is up by NOK 2.9 billion. So, that's—t hat there are many reasons for that. Of course, the market has improved, but I think it's really, really also due to a very, very strong effort by a large Norwegian team that is delivering these kind of results. So a big kudos to the whole Norwegian team for that. Geir mentioned the CASK, which is at 0.41, up from 0.39, and Geir will do a deep dive into some of the variations that why is that coming up? It's just a quick one on that.
It's foreign exchange, which is the weak Norwegian kroner, is one thing. Inflationary environment is the other one, but it's also there are some efficiency gains. But Geir will do a deep dive into that in a minute, in a couple of minutes. On the balance sheet side, we're seeing a good position. We're going just slightly up. We have a cash balance at the end of the quarter of NOK 9.4 billion, which is a solid position to be in. And that includes that we have actually redeemed the NAS13 bond during the quarter. We did that, and we actually did that in just about when we announced the Q2 results.
That's part of the exercise to even further make a fit for purpose balance sheet and prepare for the future. So we're very happy with that development, and we're also seeing that the equity ratio going significantly up to 19.6% at the end of the quarter. Just a little bit more deep dive into the figures. So, operating revenues came in at NOK 8.8 billion, which is 23% up, driven by capacity by unit revenue, which is up 4%, and capacity, which is up 20%. So that's kind of reflecting both on the ticket prices, but also on the increase in capacity.
Otherwise, you know, the operating expenses are generally kind of following the fact that we are in a high season and which gives a CASK of 0.41. But I'd like to reflect a little bit on the aviation fuel line, where we're seeing that we have actually reduced that by 11% compared with the same quarter last year. And that's even with an ASK, which is up by 17% quarter-over-quarter, and reflecting that, of course, in the Q3 of 2022, the fuel price was at kind of record high levels. So the fuel price has come down by 25%. On the other hand, the foreign exchange is up by or the Norwegian kroner has weakened against the dollar by 5%.
On top of that, we have actually also a gain of about NOK 180 million in the quarter due to our hedging position. We're coming out of the quarter with a mark-to-market value of our hedging positions of about NOK 300 million. As Geir mentioned, we have, we're quite happy with our fuel, fuel hedge position, and that has worked very well for us also in the, in the Q3. Again, a strong improvement on the EBITDAR line, also, EBIT of NOK 2.2 billion, and a net profit before taxes of NOK 2.05 billion. We have a small tax bill, not from Norway, but from a foreign entity.
And the net profit for the year, for the quarter is NOK 2.04 billion. So a good, good, very, very good performance. Talking a little bit about the balance sheet, not huge changes in our balance sheet from last quarter. The balance, the total asset goes from NOK 30.3 billion- NOK 31.5 billion. The most significant change there is that we have added aircraft. We added four new leased aircraft, which increases the tangible assets. And we're seeing that the equity comes very nicely up to NOK 6.2 billion. We're also seeing that traffic settlements liabilities comes down, which is natural due to the seasonal fluctuations. At the same, we're going from NOK 6.4 billion- NOK 3.9 billion.
It's though good to see that that air traffic liability is actually 25% higher in the Q3 this year than in the at the same time last year, reflecting higher ticket prices, but also kind of the booking momentum that, that Geir just mentioned. So that's a— that's a natural development, and it's a good development. The same goes for the holdback, which is up from 29%- 38% in the quarter. These are normal, quarterly fluctuations, and this is something which typically happens as we move into the kind of the low season of the year. So, there is nothing to worry about from the holdback situation. We brought that down significantly over the last 18 months, as you know. And the terms and conditions from the acquirers has not weakened.
Rather, we are in good dialogues with them to further improve that. But as we move from more than 100% holdback down to in the 30s, you know, the further improvement will go a bit slower. So, nothing to worry about that, on, on that, but, but it's something we're, of course, watching. On the net interest-bearing debt, it's going up a little bit from 3.7 billion to 4.3, 4.3 billion, and it's reflecting, as you can see here, largely the aircraft financing, the additional aircrafts that we've, that we have taken in. And also the fact that we have reduced the, that we actually repaid the NAS13, bond.
Talking about the reduction in the debt, just to mention that we have during this year, we have done a kind of fit for purpose exercise on our balance sheets. So not only have we voluntarily reduced, repaid the NAS13 bond, but we also, as you may recall, in the Q1, we repurchased part of the retained claim bonds. So in total, we have reduced voluntarily our debt level with NOK 935 million. So that's part of kind of fit for purpose balance sheet and preparing for the future as we are in a robust financial situation. Right. Just a few more things on our balance sheet and our cash flow. We started the quarter with NOK 9.3 billion.
We ended the quarter with NOK 9.4 billion, and as you can see, we had strong operating profitability. The lower forward bookings, of course, as we eat into the prepayments, that has an impact on our working capital, but still a, as expected, performance on that. Low investment activities, NOK 77 million, and the financing activities of NOK 1.1 billion including lease payments on our leased aircraft, and again, the redemption of this, NOK 1.1 billion of bonds. So, so we're very, very comfortable with our situation going into the winter season, of course, also going into 2024. I mentioned the holdback at kind of at 38% , a little bit weaker or higher than the situation at Q2. I mentioned why— seasonal fluctuations.
And I also like to mention that we since we have a lot of cash, and we haven't really addressed that too much in the kind of presentations earlier. O n an annual lease basis, we've been able to achieve 5.05, actually, % rate of return on our deposits, which is a significant also contributor to the bottom line in our business in the quarter. So we're quite happy with that and how we're actually also managing the excess funds in a low-risk environment, of course, but of course, watching that also source of revenue carefully. We have, as you will recall, 50 aircrafts for order, option 30, and we prepaid NOK 3.2 billion of that, so that's underway.
We have also, as you may recall, a commitment to finance the first 10 of $500 million. So that's that kind of financing of those that aircraft order is well underway. And just to remind you all that we are expecting and planning for the Widerøe transaction, of course, to take place, subject to competition authorities' approval. And that price for the Widerøe acquisition is NOK 1.125 billion, subject to certain adjustments, closing adjustments. A nd hopefully, that will come through during towards the end of this year or in the beginning of next year. All right. With that, over to you, Geir.
Thank you. I would just like to share some insights with you on the cost side of the business, what we have been doing over the last year, and what we will focus on into 2024. It's no doubt that we have headwinds on the cost side. The numbers reflect it, and everybody can see it. But at the same time, you know, we are doing whatever we can to kind of run this company as efficient as possible, do whatever measures that is possible to reduce the costs going forward. It's extremely important to be able to do it, but we have some headwinds on the macro side.
This is on the left side here, it's just a comparison to the Q3 of 2022, where we are seeing that we are going from 0.39- 0.41. The inflation kind of a weighted inflation as we see it in the markets we're operating is 5%, and then we have the weak local currency, you know, adding in 6% headwind. How are we actually exposed in region? Well, we have approximately 60% exposure to foreign currencies. First of all, U.S. dollars and euro, divided in approximately 40%-45% on the dollar and 20%-25% on the euro. On euro, we are relatively neutral because we have a lot of our income as well in euro.
So it's in net terms, we are kind of 40-45% exposed on dollars. And that is hitting us, and it's hitting us on the, you know, items we are mentioning on the left-hand side there. As I said, we're also betting and really pushing hard on the corporate side of the business. That has taken the distribution costs up. It's not massively, but it is a factor in the whole picture. That said, you could say that the yield on the corporate market is probably 25%-30% higher than on the leisure market.
So on the bottom line, it's obviously it obviously makes sense, but we are doing whatever we can to drive bookings from kind of the GDS and the costly distribution channels into direct channels, as many of the other airlines have been quite vocal on lately. On the right-hand side, it shows the plan on where we are taking down capacity into the low season. It's extremely important for Norwegian to be able to do that. A nd but I just have to thank all our unions and the crew for trying to come along and to find solutions where we're actually able to flex between the seasons.
It's very important when you are thinking about the overall profitability for the company on a 12-month rolling basis. And have in mind that 70% of the cost in this company is variable, and if we are taking out 30% of the capacity, we are saying, you know, to simplify it a little bit, then you are reducing the cost for the whole company by 20%. So we're not able to take out everything, but we're able to take out 2/3 of the capacity cost that we are taking out. And this is very important, and if we hadn't done it, we have been estimating that. Then or let's say, by doing it, we are improving the low-season results by in the area of NOK 1 billion-NOK 1.5 billion.
And it shows it's massively material, and it's very important that we can do it. And this is something that we are really focusing on for the years to come as well. And when we have negotiations with the different unions in the different countries, this is one of the main factors that we are focusing on. Just to share some details on a few of the areas that we have been working on to save cost, to take the efficiency up in the airline. These are a few of the areas. On-time performance is extremely important. It's important for the customers, but it's also important for the company because it reduces the cost of the operation.
You can say that it reduces, you know, the crew cost, fuel, handling costs, there's ATC charges because we're not penalized for not being on time, EU261 compensation, to mention a few of the areas where we are saving cost. Crew efficiency, another very important area. Or let's say, the summer that we have been behind us, we had approximately 2,700 crew, divided on the cabin and the cockpit, flying our beautiful aircraft. Next year, it will be 3,500 because we are ramping up and increasing the capacity. We have taken from 2022 into 2023, the block hours up with 6%. Block hours means the active time the crew are flying.
This will add up to approximately 760 block for the year, and this is the highest we've ever seen in Norwegian. It's very important, and we are heading towards 800 block. That's probably where we should be with the network that we have, and I think that's probably it's close to an optimal block, when you add everything up and you look at the bottom line for the company. So we are at record high levels. The crew are flying more than they have ever done, and that's, I'm afraid, to the crew, it's this the new normal. Because and because we are taking down capacity in low season, the crew actually flying will have to fly more than in previous years.
That's just how this will go going forward. Baggage handling is another area we have been focusing on. We have reduced the cost with more than 30% compared to last year. Spare engines has not been something that we have been buying in Norwegian before. Now we are in a financial position where we can actually do it, and we have done it, even with a PBH agreement attached to it. How we are flying the aircraft. SkyBreathe is a method that we have been joining over the last couple of years, where we are kind of competing with the other airlines in being the most efficient airline on fuel burn.
So this applies to—this is using advanced weather data. It will decide where, in which altitudes you would like to fly, because you would like to have tailwind and not headwind. And by doing this, we have been saving 2%-5% on fuel, and we are among the top-ranked company by the companies actually using this method and using this facilities. It's a very good thing, and it applies to when we're actually in the air, it applies to when we are on ground, on the taxiing, and so on. Green approaches, more efficient approaches, and so on. And there is a saving there, and we are doing quite well. Self-handling in Oslo have been through. And then capacity.
I think we are better today than last year and the years before on actually shifting capacity when we are seeing either shifting capacity, either to high-yield operations or high-yield markets, to add capacity or to take out capacity when it's not working. And I think, you know, back in 2022, 2023, 2024 last years, we have been flying too long with capacity in loss-making markets. I think we have become better on doing that. And looking into 2023 compared to 2022, we have markets where we have added capacity in order to do better, but we are also markets where we have reduced capacity, and we are doing better on the bottom line. I think we're better doing that today than a year ago.
Then on —t hen on crew availability, we are trying to push as much of the training of crew into the low season, where we have free capacity. The same applies to the maintenance, and first of all, the heavy maintenance on the aircraft. We have had situations where we have done heavy maintenance in July. That's not optimal, to say it mildly. So now we are trying to push it into the fall, into the winter, then we can free up the capacity when we are getting into the peak seasons. It's material, kind of the effects it will have on the financials. So that this is just a fuel hedging. Of course, we have a, I would say, a relatively good fuel position today.
I think if you look at the Q3 and the actual fuel cost per ton that we have been paying, I think we are probably the best one compared to the guys around us, and Q4 is also looking pretty good. So we are 55%-ish hedged for the remaining part of this year, 35% for 2024, and we have a small hedge position also into 2025, and actually into the fall of 2025. So this is areas that we have been pushing hard on during the last year. If you look at kind of, you know, the focus areas going forward, on time is just a focus area that we will focus on every single day, every single month, every single year going forward to keep the situation that we currently have.
Ground handling agreements, we have been running huge tenders now in huge parts of our network to try to negotiate better deals on ground handling. We have negotiated better deals. Among them, we have actually, we will onboard, not onboard, but we will take Widerøe Ground Handling on. Why? Because they were just, you know, giving us the best offer. So that's something we do. We're also in the process of insourcing front of house in Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a very important hub for us. We are increasing the capacity in Copenhagen. Next year, we'll probably have 15-16 aircraft based in Copenhagen next year, so that's a very important base, you know, outside Oslo. Heavy engine maintenance, this has been another huge process we have been running throughout the last year.
Great job by the team that has been focusing on this. We're actually changing the vendor. We are going from Lufthansa to GE, and we will have cost savings. Compared to the contract that we had before, we have savings in the area of 15%-20%, not only for 2024, but for the years to come, compared to the old agreement. Self-service tools to improve crew efficiency. We are rolling out these days self-service tools, meaning that the crew can help themselves to swap positions with others and just make the crew efficiency much more easy for them. Use much less manual time in the office to try to facilitate the wishes that our crew have, and it will just improve the crew efficiency. The same applies to the customers. They were now running, both online and in the airports, much more self-service facilities.
You can do much more online yourself as a passenger. You don't have to call the customer care service. And the same applies to the kiosks, you know, the physical boxes at the airport, where you can now both very soon buy more luggage, you can buy fast track, and you can do much more yourself, which will also take the efficiency up for the passengers, and it's a win-win for all parties. We expect that this will give good results during, let's say, into 2024 and through 2024. As I said, direct channels, we would like to reduce the distribution costs. So, that's another one. Base structure is another big one. We have been working on kind of evaluating the base structure that we have currently.
We want to make sure that we have a rightly balanced basis, as we says, meaning that you need to have the right number of people with the right ranks on the right base in order to make, you know, the network as efficient as possible. We are also seeing that when we are growing in 2024 and 2025, we are also establishing new bases outside of the Nordics. One that we will do next year is Riga, and another one is Palma de Mallorca. That's a summer base. But you will see that we will move probably more of the operation outside because the markets are really functioning now, maybe especially for the time being in Spain.
So in Spain, for example, we are increasing the number of aircraft from today, where we have eight aircraft. Next year, we will have 13-14 aircraft based in Spain. That gives us, you know—i t's first of all a result of the fact that actually the Spanish market is working, working extremely well, but it also gives us more flexibility, take us, you know, into a more flexible position when it comes to seasonality, and so on, and so on. And that gives us also the ability to kind of put parts of the- of the business in different parts of the market, and by that, more flexibility and hopefully even more cost efficient. So that's another one. Seasonal utilization, balancing of workforce is connected to what I just said, a ircraft harmonization.
We have some variations on the aircraft that we are currently flying, so we are trying to harmonize it to take out flexibility. It's not the big stuff, but it's small things. One of them is 199 seats compared to 186 seats, for example. Half of the fleet has 186, and half of the fleet is 189. So we are trying now to put in three more seats on the ones that are having 186, to take out complexity and to remove some issues when it comes to overbookings, for example. We have also been going through, in very much detail, the specification of the aircraft. This is for the new aircraft we're expecting from 2025.
We'll be going into the specification and try to adjust the specification in accordance more to the market that we are actually flying. And I think that we will have significant savings, both on the OpEx side as well as on the CapEx side. Based on the price that we negotiated with Boeing in 2022, and based on what we are now doing on the specifications, and the passengers won't see anything, I think it's fair to say that we've reduced the CapEx for the 50-80 aircraft order by millions of dollars.
So this is areas, this is some of the areas, this is probably a few of the big ones that we are currently working on in order to meet kind of the headwinds that we have on the macro environment. We have to do this, we have to push it extremely hard, and I think we will be able to show results as we go down in, into 2024. Looking at the fleet, it's another challenge for Norwegian and for the industry. We are expecting to go up to 90-91 aircraft next year. This summer, we were flying 85. We have some redelivery scheduled, let's say, throughout the fall that we are currently in and into the spring next year, and we are seeing delays from Boeing. Yes, we are seeing delays from Boeing.
We are seeing delays now in the area of 4-6 months on the 2024 deliveries, and how can we cope with that? Because we would like to increase the operation. So, what we are doing, we have already signed up extension on three leases of the 737 NGs that were supposed to be redelivered now, and we are in discussion as well to maybe extend a few more. Not for many years, but let's say for 2-3 years going forward, because we expect that the delays from Boeing will continue, not only in 2024, most likely it will happen into 2025 as well. We are getting compensated for the delays on aircraft.
This is kind of a, as I am thinking it, it's kind of an implicit PBH agreement where you are actually receiving aircraft, but you are also compensated for like, for, for, let's say, for late delivery in a period, i.e., the winter, when you actually don't really need them. So it's a, so it's a kind of implicit PBH, as I, as I see it. As many of you know, there are issues now with the Pratt & Whitney GTF engines, and this, first of all, applies to the Airbus A320s.
I just read an article the other day where they said that they expect 600 aircraft to be parked next summer, of these, these aircraft, and they expect close to 900 aircraft to be parked within the next 18 months. They're also saying that, you know, if you have to take an engine off wing, you can expect to get that engine back between 1 and 1.5 years from now. That means that that's a problem that will last for quite a while. In Norwegian, we get a flashback on this because it's pretty much a little bit, or, yeah, pretty much the same situation as we had on the 787 back in the days. At least there is clearly similarities. That means, and we don't have those issues, we are flying the CFM LEAP-1B engines.
That doesn't have that problem, but it does tell us that the leasing market going forward will be tight because people will be looking for aircraft. If you go to the leasing community today, you will be able to get a 737 MAX, for example, in 2025, but it's starting to get really, really expensive. What it also tells us is that the wet lease market next summer will be very tight, and we're already seeing signs of that because people are lacking aircraft. But I will say that we have the flexibility where we can actually deal, or say, extend the NGs that we are currently flying, and by that, mitigating late deliveries from Boeing.
I have to say, I have been flying our own MAXs a few times lately, and that is. It is a great aircraft. It's much more comfortable for us as a passenger, and it's also much more comfortable for our crew, both in the cabin and in the cockpit, because of the less noise that you have in this beautiful aircraft. So we are expecting to take delivery from, on our own order from 2025. I do think we will have some delays on that. I would also like to add that we are currently. We are evaluating whether we should start flying the MAX 10. We are doing the analysis and to look into the economics. I think it's likely that we will think it is an interesting choice.
A 737 MAX 10 for us will have 225 seats, compared to the 189 that we are flying today. I expect that we will take the decision whether we will go for a MAX 10 during the next, I would say, six months, or so. We have, we have a little bit of time. That's the, that's the, that's the, kind of fleet size. We are, we are a little bit concerned, but I think we have ways to mitigate it if we should see more delays from Boeing. This quarter, we are guiding on a few parameters. Capacity growth, we are expecting 3% approximately, compared to the same period last year for Q4.
Q1, 0%-5%, and then Q2 2024, 15%-20% increase in capacity compared to the same period in 2023. Operating profit, EBIT, we are guiding now NOK 1.8 billion-NOK 2.0 billion, and unit cost is between NOK 0.47-NOK 0.48 for the year. So just to summarize, I think that the booking environment is looking relatively good. We have been asked, you know, "Do you see kind of do you see it coming off on top of the normal seasonal, you know, variations?" And we don't really do, at least for now. I'm not saying that we will not see it going down the road, but for now, we don't see it, which is encouraging.
We will reduce the capacity over the next months with 30%-40%, as planned. I think we have the winter very well planned, and it's all about execution, and the focus now is to make sure that we do the right things into the summer next year. We are employing close to 700 new colleagues, and we have to find a balance on, you know, the aircraft deliveries compared to how many we take in. We are seeing, especially the pilot situation, getting a little bit more tight, when we are trying to fill up, you know, the training courses into the Q1 of 2024. Is it a big concern? Not as per today, but it's a slight concern. And the pilot market is, is tightening up, as we, as we call it.
On ESG, sustainability, we are pushing on as hard as we can. We had an event down in Denmark last week, where we joined up with DCC and Shell Aviation, where we are now flying, in real terms, 100 flights from Aalborg to Copenhagen with SAF, and we made a great deal with Shell Aviation. And I think we made a point out of it towards, you know, the Danish governments, where they are actually having a plan to have a green route. A 100% green route from 2025, and we are trying to show them how you can actually do it. And we will obviously bet for that route when that decision is coming up. Widerøe, no news.
We are having a dialogue with the competition authorities. Then the process to ensure capital structure. You know, we are heading towards a position where we could be able to pay dividends to our dear shareholders. That process will continue throughout the spring, and we will update the market when we have something to update the market with. But that's the aim. I think that's it for now, guys. Yeah.
Okay. You guys can go over there. We'll then open up for questions from the audience. No need for a microphone, but please introduce yourselves when you get the question. Hans-Jørgen?
Two questions from me, Hans Jørgen Elnæs, WinAir. I saw that the personnel expenses increased quite a lot, Q3 versus last year, but the number of aircraft increased from 81, from 81- 85. Can you elaborate a bit around that? What's behind this? And secondly, what's about your opinion on the increase of airport charges that will be applied almost more airports in the Nordics and Europe next year? How is that going to affect you, and what kind of situation do you see to counterweight this in your process?
On the crew expenses, as I say, it's really nothing that has happened throughout the year, other than that we have actually increased the capacity. We have, you know, we have done, you know, yearly annual salary increase, but that hasn't been kind of more than kind of the inflation really. So talking about, you know, 46%. And we have added capacity, as you know. And then we were able to kind of reach agreements with everybody prior to the summer, so we didn't have any negotiations through the peak season, which is also, you know, has been a part, you know, a huge part of the plan. That said, you know, we have pilot negotiations as we speak, both in Spain, in Denmark, and in Norway.
And we will probably use, you know, yeah, the rest of November in order to try to reach agreements. We don't see a high risk of any conflict or any strike as per today, but it is challenging, and the demands are high, as we are seeing in all the other airlines as well. So we are trying to kind of find a balance where we can agree on the terms, financial terms, but at the same time, try to find solutions where we can get the flexibility we need. We can have, you know, the right balance between the bases and so on. So it's a challenge. The demands are high, but I think it's nothing special in Norwegian.
Just adding one, one point, Geir, to that. If you look again at the first, Q2, you will see that the crew costs are pretty much on level with what we have today. So, there is nothing, like I said, exceptional in the figures.
There was an exceptional item on Q3 last year, which was furlough compensation of NOK 80 million related to Omicron. On the airport charges, however, that's another story. As we have said, you know, we have had, I would say, a fight with, especially Copenhagen Airport, over the last couple of months. And they are increasing the fees with more than 20%. And we don't really— I mean, we are doing whatever we can. So what we are trying to do is to negotiate a base rate, you know, as low as possible, and then because we are having 15-16 aircraft in Copenhagen, we think that we deserve to have the kind of the volume discounts. So all in all, we would not like to see kind of the baseline increase.
But if you look in the Nordics, for example, especially in Norway and in Denmark, partly in Sweden, not that much in Helsinki, you have increases of more than 20%. And as you know, at OSL and Avinor are also charging us 23%-25% increase in the LFP. We don't accept that. It's now sitting with the government. They have said that they were going to spend a little bit more time to evaluate it. But we, you know, massively against it, together with the other airlines. So in Copenhagen, we went together with SAS and kind of negotiated on behalf of the two of us, because we are having 55% of the capacity in Copenhagen. The same situation applies to OSL.
I would say that in the Nordics now we are probably seeing higher increases on the airport charges than the rest of Europe. The rest of Europe is more between 10% and 20%, while in the Nordics you have between 20% and 30%, which is massive, and it's definitely an issue.
Okay, any more questions from the audience? Okay, we then move on to a couple of questions from the web. We start with Ole Martin Westgaard at DNB Markets, " This was a disappointing year on cost due to high underlying inflation. How do you see the inflationary pressure now and for 2024 on your key cost component?"
I think I've been through kind of the areas that we have been focusing on in 2023, and that and where we will continue also into 2024. We do expect inflation to come down. I think the inflation today is more like between 3% and 3.5%. So as such, we should, you know, we should benefit of that. I think that we have, you know, in Norwegian today, if you read the numbers, you can say that we have a cost base of NOK 20 billion. And you could say that, you know, out of that, you can probably do something of—you can work, have, y ou can, you could probably work on half of it. The rest is relatively fixed.
So I think, you know, if we can work on the areas that we have been through today, I mean, we should be able to, you know, to come up with some good results, taking the cost level to a good level. We're not guiding on CASK, at least not for now, for 2024. We will come back to that. But we know that we have some areas where the costs will go down. We have been talking about one of them, the airport charges, and then we will just work on whatever we can to get it down.
How do you see the competitive landscape post Air France-KLM acquisition or acquisition announcement of SAS?
Capacity landscape?
Competition, competitive landscape.
Competitive landscape. It hasn't really changed for now, I would say. I mean, if we are seeing something today in the landscape, it is actually in the markets we are flying, it's actually airlines taking down capacity. Is it because of the low season? Yes, probably. Is it more than that? I don't know. But we are seeing SAS, for example, now domestic in Norway, taking down capacity in a way that we haven't seen for a while. We are seeing Ryanair taking out capacity in Norway and Sweden, even domestic in Sweden.
So as such, you can see that, you know, most of us are adjusting capacity in line with the demand. And then we will see coming into the spring and into the summer. I would say that the competitive landscape as such in the Nordic countries is pretty similar today than what we saw 6-12 months ago, actually, as I see it.
Okay, moving on to a question from Andrew Lobbenberg in Barclays, "And keeping on the competitive situation. You see Ryanair putting up bases, or tails in Copenhagen, airBaltic going to the Canaries from Scandi. Is that impacting the competitive landscape?"
I think, yeah, say Ryanair in Denmark, that is, that is that has been, you know, the expectation for quite a while. So but we can handle it. I mean, we, we are, you know, we are— we have a big operation in Denmark. You know, yes, we have seen airBaltic flying, you know, the some of the typical Norwegian, you know, but that's, that's, that's a competition we can handle. I mean, nothing dramatic as I see it.
Another question from Andrew, " Previously, you talked about weaknesses in city bookings, or I've talked about it a bit. Is it a bit better now? What's happening?"
I would say that, you know, the typical weekend, you know, the weekend destinations, that could be, you know, for example, Tromsø - Copenhagen, Tromsø - London, and London- Paris, is actually— is not great, but it's picking up. But I'd say, as I said earlier today, if you look at the different, you know, segments, b each is working well, domestic is working well, and the cities are all the less, you know, it, it's the type of, you know, that, that's part of the market that is actually, you know, behind, lagging behind. That's fair to say.
Then we go to one final question from Eirik Rafdal in Carnegie, " Booked fares for November, December, you alluded to being up 15%-20% above last year. Can you give any indications for what you see for bookings in early 2024?"
I could say that, you know, it's looking at 2023, when we are standing, let's say in 2022, looking into 2023, it's looking better. That's what we can say.
Okay. That concludes the session. Thank you very much for attending.
Thank you.