Good morning to you, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. We take picture number two. It's me, Torbjörn Johansson, CEO, that make the presentation, and I have with me our CFO, Daniel Ekstrand, also. We take page number three. As you all know, we are working with humidity control in aircraft, for a better climate in the aircraft cabin and in the sky. Our products are the humidifier you can see on the left side and our dehumidifier. We take the next page, page number four and g o directly to page number five. The highlights of this quarter was that we met our forecast on the net sales. We had net sales of SEK 38 million. Of course, it's much lower than last year, but we have the COVID-19 situation. I'm very happy to still be profitable despite the COVID-19.
The aftermarket was better than we thought three months ago. We have also entered an agreement with Camfil, which is an air quality expert and located close to Linköping in Trollhättan. We have agreed to develop applications for the aircraft. We are looking at integrating filter solution into our humidifier pads. We take the next picture, picture number six. If we look at the financials, in short, the net sales was SEK 38 million, down from last year with 54%. The profit was SEK 6 million, which gives us an EBIT margin of 17%, and that means an earning per share of SEK 0.4. The cash flow was negative. I am not so happy about that, but we will come back to that later in the presentation. We take the next picture, picture number seven.
If we look at the net sales bridge, we had a very strong quarter last year. I think it was a record quarter for quarter number three. Compared to that quarter, we have lost SEK 21 million in OEM sales and about half of that is due to the deletion of the drying system for the 787, and the rest is lower sales of humidifiers. What has been very strong this quarter and was low last quarter was the VIP sale, the quarter last year, I mean. The VIP sales have been strong the whole year, and that has not been affected by the COVID-19. There we have a positive contribution of SEK 9 million. Of course, we have suffered in the aftermarket. We will come back to that, the effect, if we compare to last year, is very big.
We had a very good quarter last year regarding aftermarket sales. If we continue to the next picture, it's picture number eight. You see it on the sales mix also. The aftermarket is lower this quarter, in percentage also compared to the same quarter last year. You can see the strength of the VIP business this quarter compared to last year. The OEM portion of our business has decreased slightly, but not as much as the aftermarket business. We take the next picture, that is picture number nine, where we are looking at the EBIT profit bridge. We have talked about the net sales. Most of the decrease in net sales is, of course, due to COVID-19. We should not forget that we have lost the drying system if we compare to last year.
We look at the EBIT margin, most of the loss is, of course, of lower business, lower volume and so on. We also have some effect from the currency. We take the next picture, picture number 10, which is the cash flow. We are still negative in cash flow this year. Mainly it depends on the low sale, of course, which give us a weaker cash flow. We have also a couple of VIP projects. The payment of that is in the end of the project. Normally, a VIP project is cash positive during the length. This is special projects that has another construction. We have an inventory buildup. In the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, we concentrated to have enough in the inventory to be able to adjust for any disruption in the supply chain.
Now I think we have the supply chain absolutely under control, we have not have any disruptions. Now we can start to lower our inventory again. That is a focus for the next quarters. We are very sure that we can get the reduction in inventory. We have also invested in our Bribo facility, where we have the sheet metal production. The laser cutting and punching machine was 15 years old, and during this quarter we have introduced a new machine that will, of course, give us an efficiency increase. If it's something good with the COVID-19, it is that we could invest and introduce such a machine when we are not running at 100% power or production. That is good. There you can see the cash flow. I'm pretty sure that we will turn the cash flow the coming quarters.
We take the next picture, picture number 11, that is our order intake and backlog. Of course, the COVID-19 gives us an effect on the order intake. We have lower intake of aftermarket orders, also Airbus and Boeing has adjusted the backlogs. We are down at a record low order book, I have a feeling now that it will start to turn. We take the next picture, picture 12, look at the first three quarter of this year. We go immediately to picture number 13. There you can see on the net sales side, we are down compared to last year with 39%. Of course, we have a bigger effect on the earnings. It's down about 60%. We still have an earning per share of around SEK 2.3 .
Again, the cash flow, I'm not too happy with, but we will turn around the cash flow now. We take the next picture. There you can see the sales mix. It's about the same as for the quarter. VIP has been strong during this crisis. The OEM has gone down a little bit and the aftermarket a little bit more. We take the next picture, picture number 15. If we look at the cash flow again over the three quarters, first of all, if you compare year-over-year, we had a big tax payment in 2020 that was related to 2019 and 2018. When you adjust for that, the cash flow is positive over those nine months. We have discussed the VIP projects and we have discussed a little bit the inventory buildup.
What is very clear, if you look what we pay in taxes, what we have paid in taxes during those three quarters, it is much more 2020 than it was 2019. Of course, we can get tax money back, and we are working on that issue now. If we take the next picture, picture number 16, there we are looking at the rolling four quarters. If we compare the last four quarters with the four quarters before, the net sales are down 30% or 32%, and the earnings around 50%. There you can see the cash flow is positive if we look in this perspective over the last four quarters. We take the next picture, picture number 18. Now we come into the outlook part of the presentation, which perhaps is the most interesting part of this presentation. We look at the forecast, first of all.
It's on page number 19. This is the first time I'm a little bit unsure about the forecast. We have opened up the band, so we expect net sales between SEK 35 million and SEK 45 million. Of course, that's lower than last year. The reason why we have opened up is that we have an underlying demand in the aftermarket. We know how much the aircraft are flying. Normally, the aftermarket sales will start to pick up, but I cannot see that in the order book yet. Therefore, we are a little bit wider here in the gap. If we look at the OEM side, there we have a clear picture. We will go down a little bit in the fourth quarter.
That is normal because Boeing is taking less deliveries by the end of the year, and then they go up in the first quarter the year after. This is the same this year. Therefore, the OEM will be slightly lower in the fourth quarter compared to third quarter, but we will increase again in the first quarter next year. We take the next picture, picture number 20, and here we come into the, what we call managing the COVID-19 impact. We go straight into picture number 21. If we look in the commercial aviation world, it is two interesting graphs that we have here. If we look at the left lower picture, you can see the activity of flights in the world. If you look at 2019 is the red line and 2020 is the blue line.
There you can see that the traffic was down to about 30% of the traffic in 2019 or the traffic before COVID-19. That was in April. Since then, it has recovered. It recovered relatively quickly, up to about 60% in July, August, and it has increased to grow, but at a slower pace. Now if we look all over, we are at about 60% of the traffic we had in 2019. Of course, this is led by the short and medium-range aircraft. If you look at Europe, of course, we have more traffic inside of Europe than we have to the United States, for example, and that's absolutely normal. The long-haul traffic will come a little bit later or increase a little bit later. You should also know it's big differences between different parts of the world.
I think here in Europe, we are a little bit sorry about the second wave and that the traffic is not growing as we had hoped for the moment. In areas like Russia, China, Asia, we have another situation. If we look into the situation in the United States, you can see on the graph at the right upper corner that the traffic in the U.S. is actually back to almost half of the traffic during 2019. The traffic in U.S. has recovered. It is very clear. We can take the next picture. What does that meaning for CTT? As you know, of course, we are dependent on the OEM sales. That is the basis. We are very dependent on the aftermarket also. Here you have two pictures.
We take the one up in the right corner, we have a picture of the utilization of the 787 fleet. You can see in April, about 40% of the aircraft was parked, actually didn't fly anything. Now in the middle of October, we are up to about 70% that is in service. I said wrong. It was 60% that was parked, in April, now we are up to that about 60%-70% are in service. Of course, the aircraft that are in service are not flying the same amount of flight hours as they did during 2019. If you look at the left side of the picture and you see that graph, you can see that the average flight hour on the 787 aircraft was down. It was down from before COVID-19.
They were flying about 300,000 hours in the fleet, and we went down to about 80,000 hours in the fleet. That is, of course, very low. Since then, we have recovered, and you can see it, especially in July and August. We are waiting for the figures for September. Those flight hour figures we get from Boeing. It's very clear that the 787 fleet that is most important are flying more than the overall wide-body fleet. The overall wide-body fleet in the world was, before COVID-19, about 4,600 aircraft. The old aircraft, it means 747, 777, 767, and the A380 also, they have been grounded immediately, and they will continue to be grounded. I think many of those aircraft will be retired. The 1,300 aircraft we are most interested in is 1,000, about 787 and 300 A350. They are used more.
When we have the recovery now, those aircraft where we have equipment on that creates our aftermarket, will recover to 100% much quicker than the overall wide-body fleet. That we should think about when we look a little bit forward for CTT. I think if we summarize this, the situation we have now is that our sales of consumables are lower than the underlying demand that we have. It means that the aircraft are flying more than we can see in our sales, and that means that we have a decrease in inventory by the airlines, by our partner, Satair and Boeing. We cannot, over time, live with lower inventories by the airlines. Sooner or later, they will have to start to buy again. The question is only exactly when that comes.
We are very sure the number of flight hours that the aircrafts are making is higher than what we are selling now. We really believe in the underlying demand will show stronger after-market sales in the next quarters for CTT. We take the next picture, picture number 23. Okay, CTT has lower sales and lower after-market sales, but the development and the ongoing projects are looking very good from an engineering point of view. If we take the first project that is most important, perhaps for the moment, is the 777X. Of course, Boeing delayed that program with about six months. I think it is mainly due to COVID-19, but perhaps they had some issues also. It's good news. A couple of weeks ago, the test aircraft four were flying, and in that aircraft, we have our flight deck humidifier.
The first flight deck humidifier on the 777X has been flying, and we have not heard any issues so far from Boeing. That's a good sign. Of course, the part of our growth in 2021 and forward on the OEM side will be the deliveries to the 777X project. The aircraft beside is an ACJneo, ACJ320neo, and there you know we are working together with Airbus to improve our humidification system for that aircraft type. Airbus is now really supporting us. They are supporting us from a marketing point of view, and I have been discussing with the VIP boss from Airbus, and he says, when you have a VIP aircraft, you should really have a humidification system because that is the icing on the cake, of the comfort. You feel much better when the cabin is humidified.
We have been working with VIP aircraft for many years, but when a person like that says that VIP aircraft should have humidification, that will give us a very strong position in the market. The project on the left lower side is the MC-21, and that is really unique in that respect that we have a flight deck humidifier on the narrow body aircraft that is flying short to medium distances. They are also in the flight test program, and we have our humidifiers flying there. I think they are up and flying with four or five aircraft. That one will go into service. I think it's planned for 2022. It means that they are slowly starting the serial production during 2021. Because the humidifier is basic, it means a humidifier in cockpit on every aircraft. That will increase our sales.
Of course, a humidifier also increase our after-market sales. Perhaps the most promising project is on the right lower side. That is Global 7500 aircraft. It's a private jet, business jet. We have started to deliver parts to this project, and we should deliver the whole system in the fourth quarter. That is one of those VIP project that is a little bit cashflow back driven. It's very exciting. It's the first time that CTT do a humidification system in a VIP aircraft. It's a system. It has four humidifiers and one dryer, plus controls. You as shareholder of CTT, I'm very happy that we have four humidifiers instead of two. It means we will create more after market. First of all, this is an icebreaker into a segment which we have looked for many years.
The Global 7500 can fly 15, 16 hours. They will have a production volume of about 40 aircraft a year. Only this program can be substantially bigger than all the VIP sales we have done in the past. You also know that Gulfstream is building the same type of aircraft. Of course, if Bombardier has a humidification system, we have a good chance to come into Gulfstream also. It's not a picture yet, but in the last week or two, Airbus also announced that they will make the business jet out of the smallest Airbus aircraft, the A220. There again, the VIP boss by Airbus said that this aircraft will have a humidification system. The A220 will be bigger. It will be a bigger cabin than the Global 7500. It will not have the same long range.
I think they aim to fly 10, 11 hours with that aircraft. Again, Airbus says it has to have a humidification system. Airbus has already six orders of this aircraft type, and the two first aircraft will go to Comlux Aviation, which is a VIP charter company. They have already on bigger VIP charter aircraft, our humidification system. Comlux as a company is one of our biggest customer on the VIP side. If you look at VIP business jet, it seems to be very strong and it's logical because in these COVID-19 times, the rich people like to fly their own aircraft instead of take the risk to go with normal airlines. That is the future projects we are working with. If we take the next picture, picture number 24, we look into the market drivers due to the COVID-19.
If we look at the humidification market, of course, comfort and wellbeing has always been our sales argument. The industry is looking more and more now into air quality. Air quality generally, and of course, air quality, part of that is high humidity. We really try now to be a stronger partner in air quality. We will try to put in, or we will put in filters in our humidifiers to not only humidify, we can take away ozone, we can take away volatile organic compounds. We could actually do make our humidifier more attractive for the end customer. Of course, the whole industry is working with wellness confidence to travel. They work with the cabin. They try to make flying as safe as possible that the passenger comes back. The humidification system with air quality aspects is more and more talked about in the industry.
If we look at the dehumidifier market, of course, our sales pitch has always been cost saving, lower cost to operate, and fuel savings. With all the subsidiaries and the government going in and helping airlines, the government really push for sustainability. The airlines has all the pressure they could have to reduce the impact on the environment and save CO2 too. There our dehumidifier is absolutely right positioned. We hope on that. We take the next picture, and I think that is the last picture, picture 25. We talked to that a little bit when we looked at the development projects we have. If we look at midterm growth opportunities, of course, 787 is our best opportunity overall. For every 787 we get out, the aftermarket is growing. We are looking more and more into business class humidification on the 787.
On the 787, you can have humidification in the cockpit and in the crew rest, but we still don't have cabin humidification. On the A350, which came a little bit later and the 777X now, there, the airline can select cabin humidification. It is not illogical that we could be able to sell humidification into business class on this type. It would be very, not cheap system, but a cost-effective system to humidify the business classes. Could be enough with one humidifier or in some bigger business classes, two. As I said, we actually have an OEM opportunity there. There we could get growth. The other big growth potential is of course, business jet and what we do in the VIP market. The long range business jet, Global 7500 and the Gulfstream. There is production volumes up to perhaps 100 aircraft a year.
There we really have a chance to grow our business. The main part of that business will be again, humidifiers, which in the end then will create an aftermarket. That was what I wanted to present to you. I think we have picture number 26 is question and answers. Please come with your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question for the speaker, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you that if you want to ask a question, you will have to press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. There are no questions. Dear speaker, the floor is yours.
Okay. Thank you for listening. That was the third quarter. We will talk to each other again, I think, beginning of February, where we have our report for the total year 2020. Thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye.