Air Canada Bounces Back To Profit In Q3, Beats Estimates

Air Canada (AC_B.TO), the flag carrier of Canada, Monday registered a turnaround to profit for the third quarter of 2023, supported by higher passenger revenues. Excluding items, the company’s earnings beat Street View.

For the three-month period, the airline reported earnings of C$1.250 billion or C$3.08 per share, compared with loss of C$508 million or C$1.42 per share, registered for the same quarter of 2022.

Adjusted earnings surged to C$1.281 billion or C$3.41 per share, higher than C$431 million or C$1.07 per share of the previous year.

On average, 11 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting the firm to earn C$2.1 per share, for the quarter. Analysts’ estimates typically exclude special items.

Pre-tax income was at C$1.317 billion, compared with a loss of C$504 million a year ago.

Excluding items, EBITDA improved to C$ 1.830 billion from the previous year’s C$1.057 billion.

Operating income more than doubled to reach C$1.415 billion from C$644 million in 2022.

Air traffic, in terms of revenue passenger miles, stood at 25.202 billion, compared with 22.118 billion a year ago.

Available seat miles moved down to 28.060 billion, less than 25.562 billion last year.

Passenger load factor improved to 89.8 percent from 86.5 percent in 2022.

Revenue passengers carried were at 12.635 million, versus 11.466 million a year ago.

Excluding items, the cost per available seat mile improved to 12.2 cents from 11.6 cents in the previous year.

Operating revenue was C$6.344 billion, up from last year’s C$5.322 billion and the analysts’ estimates of C$5.95 billion.

Looking ahead, for full-year 2023, Air Canada now expects its ASM capacity to improve about 20 percent on a year-over-year basis against its previous expectation for an increase of about 21 percent increase.

Excluding items, CASM is now projected to grow about 1.5 percent to 2.25 percent, higher than the previous expectation of about 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent growth.

The company continues to expect to report adjusted EBITDA of about $3.75 billion to $4 billion.

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