Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the presentation of our 2nd quarter. Highlights of the 2nd quarter was, of course, that we were the winner of the Skytrax award for the Best Low Cost Long Haul. 3rd time in a row, and Europe's Best Low Cost Airline for the 5th time in a row. We started up the single intercontinental operations between the U.S. and U.K., Ireland, and Norway. We have added 2 new Boeing 737 MAX, 8 787-8s, and one Dreamliner into operations. 8 of these 787-8s have been financed through sale and leaseback. We have also entered into a letter of intent for sale and leaseback of 11 Boeing 787-8s, older aircraft that we have from our existing fleet. We have also sold 2.5% of Bank Norwegian on TRS. EBITDA, except the gains and losses of NOK 256 million from NOK 864 last year, decrease on the fuel and sale and leaseback.
That's the main thing. We have flown more than 200 million passengers since the startup in 2002. The 2nd quarter, we added 12%, and on the rolling, we are up to 8.6 million passengers for the 2nd quarter. On rolling 12 months, we are now flying at 31 million passengers. A stable load factor at 88%. We have also a stable mix of passengers, 8% growth in the Nordics and 36% growth in the U.S., and 25% in France, respectively. Our revenue grew with 17% in the 2nd quarter. The revenue per ASK was down 3% to NOK 0.36, -2%, if you take into consideration the constant currency. Average flying distance increased by 6%, and 4% growth in ancillary revenue per passenger, up to NOK 136. We have introduced the MAX 737.
The aircraft have 13% lower fuel consumption and a 4% lower seat cost per trip, and it takes 3 more passengers, 189 passengers. It will give us a better cost efficiency on these transatlantic routes. If we look at the range for the 737 MAX, we can see that it has a considerably longer range than the 737-800. Actually, around 500 nautical miles longer range. We have so far received 6 MAXs. Next year, we will receive another 12, up to 18. You can see, we will receive up to 110 MAXs by the end of 2022. We have concentrated our route portfolio into the U.S., and today we have 58 intercontinental routes from Europe and into the U.S. In 2017, we added 32 new aircraft. By the end of this year, we will be up to 144 aircraft.
We have redelivered 4 of our older NG. We are also implementing Wi-Fi on our entire fleet. Today, we have signed contracts to provide Wi-Fi on the 787 MAX and also on the 787 fleet. We have also extended the existing Wi-Fi contract for the 787 fleet to increase the bandwidth with more than 40%. We will start to install 2nd quarter next year. We will install Wi-Fi on our MAX fleet, and the 3rd quarter on our 787s. I will go over to the financials and our new CFO, Tore Østby, will present you with the figures.
Thank you, Bjørn. When we look into the financials for the second quarter, we have revenue a little bit short of NOK 8 billion, an increase of NOK 1.1 billion from the second quarter last year. If we look on EBITDA, we have a reduction to NOK 59 million this quarter. The main reason for the reduction is higher fuel price. Also a change in mark to market of hedging, rough impact of NOK 660 million from last year. Also a change in accounting related to our sale and leaseback of a total of 26 aircraft so far, 15 with impact in this period. The net profit for the quarter is NOK 1.1 billion or NOK 1,080 million, an increase of NOK 300 million from last year.
The main driver of that is the gain from the sale of Bank Norwegian shares, offset by MRC funds related to sale of the 11 aircraft, older NGs. If you look on the clean EBITDA, when we adjust for all the gains and losses, we have a comparable result with last year of NOK 300 million, a reduction from NOK 946 million the same period last year. If you break down this change from last year, NOK 864 million. The main reason for the change in EBITDA is related to a NOK 300 million impact from increasing fuel prices. Roughly NOK 200 million impact from a 3% lower yield, of which the passenger tax in Norway explains two-thirds of it. We also have a slightly higher wet lease cost, mainly related to our long-haul operation, where we have leased one aircraft because of maintenance of engines.
The impact of sale and leasebacks gives us a higher lease ratio. This year, 50% of our fleet was leased versus 42% last year. That gives us the results for the current quarter of NOK 256 million. Our unit costs have the same explanations that we see an increase in our unit cost related to fuel and also the leasing where we move cost from depreciation to leasing. If we break down our unit cost, we see that the higher fuel cost is driven by a 22% increase in fuel prices and a weaker Norwegian kroner, 3% weaker versus USD. Our personnel cost is on budget. We have an increase of 12% per ASK, but that is mainly related to ramp-up over intercontinental routes. We have an increase in number of employees of 41% versus last year.
That is to meet the growth that we will have in the second half of this year. Our airport and handling costs are down per ASK year-on-year, mainly driven by increased sector length but also the fact that we've taken over handling operations in Gatwick and in our Spanish bases compared to last year. The higher leasing costs we have touched on, the increase is 22% per ASK compared to last year. That is the higher share, 50% leased aircraft versus 42%. We have also an increase in our technical cost related to leasing. That's the change in accounting principles because of leasing versus owning aircraft. We also have had some ground damages in the second quarter. We have, as we explained, slightly higher wet lease cost. If you look on our unit cost comparison versus other airliners, we have a quite strong position versus other low-cost airliners.
This illustration shows how we compare to other airlines, including cost of depreciation. All ownership cost is included in this one. If you look on our cash flow for the quarter, we have a very strong liquidity when we left Q2 of a cash of NOK 5.8 billion. The cash flow from operations last 12 months was NOK 2.5 billion versus NOK 3.3 billion a year before. We had NOK 3.4 billion invested in aircraft over the last 12 months. That is mainly related to 2016. Our financing is on track. We have lowered our CapEx guidance several times this year. The updated CapEx guidance for 2017 following the sale and leaseback transactions will be around $0.7 billion. That is down from previously guided $1.3 billion. Our guidance a year ago at $2.1 billion. For 2018, we expect $2.1 billion investments.
We have mentioned the PDP facility for our 50 Airbus A320neo. We have established a credit facility of $1 billion in December 2016, of which $300 million is undrawn. In July, after we finished our Q2 report, we have repaid our NAS 04 bond of NOK 1 billion. As you can see, we have several options or several different sources of financing and we work with several long-term financing opportunities. We have said that all financing is in place for 2017, and we are now working on the 2018 financing. Our net debt is cut by an additional NOK 0.9 billion this quarter. We turn to NOK 19.3 billion, a reduction from NOK 20.2 billion in Q1 2017. Our equity ratio is 8%, which is unchanged compared to last year. If you look on the outlook, we have now decided to show the bookings for the next months ahead of us.
We have sold 90% of our inventory for July, and as you can see in the chart, we are ahead on bookings for the summer, especially well ahead for August and also September. We have sold roughly 65% of our inventory for August. If you look on our expectations for 2017, we do see still a slightly negative impact from currency. We will also increase our distance. With an average sector increase, we will have a slightly negative impact on our unit revenue. Our capacity-adjusted booking volumes are ahead of last year. We expect ASK production to be roughly 25% higher this year versus last year. That is compared to our previous estimate of 30% growth.
The change in volume is related to a 2% lower production so far in Q1 and Q2 this year, but also an expected lower production in Q4, mainly related to engine maintenance of our Dreamliners, which will reduce capacity, but also a reduction in short-haul operation out of U.K., especially other cities than Gatwick. We have also shown you how we expect the growth to kick in for Q3 and Q4, with 25% in Q3 and 30% in Q4. Our fuel hedging for 2017 remains unchanged at 52% at $494 per ton. We have hedged 27% of our 2018 volumes at $494 per ton. We expect the unit cost to be around NOK 0.42 per ASK, versus our previous estimate of NOK 0.39-0.40. The assumption behind our cost guidance is unchanged at $500 per ton for fuel and the same currency expectations.
The main explanation for the change in the cost guidance is the current impact of FX and fuel. We have NOK 200 million higher cost in the first half of this year related to fuel prices and FX rates. On top of this, we have said that we have sold and leased back 11 aircraft or an letter of intent to sell and lease back 11 aircraft, and we have also already sold and leased back 15 aircraft earlier this year. For the 26 aircraft we sell and lease back, we will have an extra unit cost of roughly NOK 0.01 per ASK. Most of this is added back on depreciation, where we will have NOK 400 million lower cost related to financing and depreciation. We have a similar impact of reduced growth related to our fixed cost on aircraft, which then will be spread out on a lower volume production.
The wet lease cost. We have a change in wet lease cost related to the summer operation and also the ground damage of one aircraft and the extra maintenance related to our long-haul operation. Our new CAS guidance will be around NOK 0.42. With that, I give the word back to you to wrap it up, Bjørn.
Going forward, we have seen that we have solid bookings ahead of Q3, and of course, we focus on the global expansion. That means that we will have a strong growth in staff and of course, routes and aircraft. We have launched intercontinental routes between U.K. and Argentina and between Rome and U.S., as well as more U.S. destinations from Paris and London. 58 routes into U.S. That's quite remarkable after three years, I think. We have strengthened the liquidity to meet the future to make it more robust. We have a very strong liquidity. Completed the transaction of the sale of 11 aircraft in Q3, we anticipate. We will continue focus on fleet renewal with the MAX and, of course, taking out the older NGs. That is according to our strategy. Thank you, everybody.