PARIS: European aircraft maker Airbus on Friday announced a rise in net profits in the third quarter, saying it achieved a “solid” financial performance despite a “complex” environment.
The company’s net profit increased year-on-year by 65 percent between July and September to 667 million euros ($666 million). Its turnover climbed by 27 percent to 13.3 billion euros in the same period.
Despite difficulties with suppliers, which have been disrupted since the Covid-19 pandemic, Airbus still expects to deliver around 700 aircraft in 2022, including more than 260 in the last three months of the year.
Deliveries of aircraft are a reliable indicator of profitability in the aerospace sector as clients pay most of their bill when they receive the planes.
Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury welcomed a “solid” financial performance in the first nine months of the year despite a “complex operating environment”.
He highlighted the “fragile” nature of supply chains following the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, energy supply issues and constrained labour markets.
The firm will maintain its goal of achieving an adjusted operating profit of 5.5 billion euros in 2022 and expects a higher cash flow, reflecting the strength of the dollar against the euro.
Meanwhile, European airline group Air France-KLM said Friday that its third quarter revenues had exceeded its pre-pandemic turnover in 2019, fuelled by strong post-Covid demand for travel.
The company recorded a net profit of 460 million euros ($459 million) between July and September in a second consecutive quarter of profitability, despite the pressures of soaring inflation and fuel costs, it said in a statement.
The Covid-19 pandemic grounded planes worldwide as the global health emergency triggered stringent travel restrictions, devastating the aerospace and tourism industries.
But pent-up demand as economies and borders reopened saw the French-Dutch group record a turnover of 8.1 billion euros in the third quarter, its key summer season.
The result exceeded the equivalent figure for 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, by more than 500 million euros.
The airline group transported 25 million passengers in the third quarter, an increase of almost 50 percent on the same period last year.
It said the performance will allow it to reduce its debt and pay back one billion euros of state loans.
Chief executive Benjamin Smith said the group “remains confident in its ability to further increase capacity during the winter season”.
Air France-KLM made huge losses in 2020 and 2021 after the pandemic slashed passenger numbers to around a third of normal levels, but has made a profit so far this year.
The French and Dutch governments intervened to prop up the airline at the most acute moment of the crisis, but the group is emerging stronger after two recapitalisations.
IAG, owner of British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia, revealed Friday a return to profit in the third quarter with passenger demand recovering after widespread easing of Covid restrictions.
Profit after tax stood at 853 million euros ($850 million) in the July-September period compared with a net loss of 574 million euros in the third quarter last year.
Revenue soared to 7.3 billion euros in the peak summer season from 2.7 billion euros, IAG added in a statement.
“While demand remains strong, we are conscious of the uncertainties in the economic outlook,” said IAG chief executive Luis Gallego.
