The Swiss airline continued its recovery in the financially significant third quarter and posted profits once again. Now, almost three years after the corona crisis, it is well on its way to being profitable again in 2022 as a whole.
As announced on Thursday, Switzerland increased its sales from July to September by 88.2% to CHF 1.33 billion. It is said that the positive business development in the previous months continues in the quarter with the summer holidays falling and the travel busiest.
Flight stability restored
“Almost unique market conditions” could have contributed to this. These have arisen due to scarce supply as a result of global resource bottlenecks and simultaneous catching effects in passenger and freight traffic. “Thanks to effective restructuring and a high level of flight schedule stability, we were able to translate these into strong results over the summer,” CFO Markus Binkert said in a statement. Said.
Operating profit for the quarter was CHF 220.5 million. Thus, it was already quite close to the pre-crisis level. In the third quarter of 2019, that is, before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, it still had an operating profit of CHF 244 million. Later last year it dropped to just 22.7 million.
Snowy full year expected
According to the communiqué, Switzerland’s sales for the full nine-month period were CHF 3.18 billion and an operating profit of CHF 287.5 million. The airline is now confident that it can make a “solid” profit in the last quarter as well. This is despite the fact that the months before the end of the year are usually not long enough for big jumps.
“Despite the economic and geopolitical uncertainties currently prevailing, Switzerland is currently in a very good reservation situation,” the communiqué says. (SDA)