Profits at Greek carrier Aegean Airlines slipped by around one-fifth in the third quarter, a period in which capacity was limited by the continued impact of the Pratt & Whitney geared-turbofan (GTF) engine inspections and conflict in the Middle East.
Aegean’s pre-tax profit fell 18% to €139 million ($147 million) in the three months to 30 September 2024, while net profit dropped 19% to €108 million.
Revenue fell 3% during the quarter to €631 million on flat passenger levels of 5.3 million. That reflects constrained capacity during the third quarter, which was 1% lower, while traffic fell 3% over the same period last year. Load factor was two points down at 83.9%.
Aegean’s capacity was hit by the continued impact from groundings related to the early inspections of the GTF engines powering its Airbus A320neos. It says it grounded up to 10 aircraft – around 17% of its jet fleet – over the first nine months of the year.
The carrier also took a roughly 3.5-4% hit to international traffic in the third quarter as a result of suspending its Beirut and Tel Aviv flights due to the ongoing conflict in the region.
Aegean Airlines chief executive Dimitris Gerogiannis says: “Aegean once again demonstrated strong performance despite significant exogenous constraints in its operations and increasing competitors’ capacity in the Greek market. The successful network rescheduling and the agility of our organisation have delivered once again a very strong set of results comparable with the top-performing companies in our industry.”
In contrast to the third quarter, Aegean expects to offer increase capacity in the final three months of the year, a period in which it will launch flights from Athens to Abu Dhabi and Thessaloniki to Amsterdam.
”During the last quarter of the year, we will continue to take deliveries of additional new aircraft, supporting and benefiting from the gradual extension of the tourism season,” says Gerogiannis.
”We expect to deliver once again positive growth rate in traffic and revenue which is already noticeable since October/ November of 2024.”
