In an amazing turnaround, the International Airlines Group (IAG), which owns British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus and Fly LEVEL SL in Spain, posted an operating profit of €293m (R4,94bn) for Q2 2022.
This is in spite of ongoing airport chaos widespread across Europe.
This is the first time the group has turned a profit since pre-pandemic 2019. In the same period last year, IAG recorded a loss of nearly €1bn (R16,84bn). It’s an increase of almost €707m (R11,91bn) in profits in just a year.
"This result supports our outlook for a full-year operating profit. Our performance reflected a significant increase in capacity, load factor and yield compared with the first quarter,” CEO Luis Gallego said.
Despite this, he warned: “Our industry continues to face historic challenges due to the unprecedented scaling up in operations, especially in the UK where the operational challenges of Heathrow airport have been acute. We will continue working with the industry to address these issues as aviation emerges from its biggest crisis ever.”
London's Heathrow and low-cost carriers like easyJet and Wizz Air have also reported improving operations in the last week, hopefully signalling the near end of extensive disruption at airports, according to Reuters.
Gallego said he hoped Heathrow would have returned fully to normal operations by the end of 2022.
IAG’s passenger capacity hit 78% of 2019 levels in Q2 this year, and the group predicts passenger capacity will hit 80% in Q3 and 85% by the end of the year. Original forecasts were estimates of 85% and 90% respectively, made before London Heathrow began experiencing bottlenecks, delays and passenger frustration.
