Earnings call transcript: Norwegian Air Shuttle Q4 2024 sees revenue surge, stock up

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA (OL:NAS) reported a significant increase in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024, as the airline continues to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. The company’s stock price rose by 2.99% following the earnings release, reflecting positive investor sentiment. The airline’s Q4 revenue reached SEK 8.2 billion, marking a 39% increase year-on-year. However, the company posted a negative EBIT of NOK 222 million, highlighting ongoing challenges in achieving profitability. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a strong financial health score of 3.2 out of 5, rated as "GREAT," suggesting resilience despite operational challenges.

Key Takeaways

• Q4 revenue increased by 39% year-on-year to SEK 8.2 billion.
• Norwegian Air Shuttle’s stock rose by 2.99% post-earnings.
• Passenger numbers grew by 32% compared to the previous year.
• Load factor maintained between 80-90%.
• The company anticipates real wage growth in Scandinavia in 2025.

Company Performance

Norwegian Air Shuttle’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2024 was marked by a strong recovery in passenger numbers and revenue growth. Despite these gains, the airline reported a negative EBIT, indicating that profitability remains a challenge. The company continues to expand its capacity and fleet, positioning itself for future growth in the recovering travel market.

Financial Highlights

• Q4 Revenue: SEK 8.2 billion, up 39% YoY
• Group EBIT: Negative NOK 93 million
• Norwegian EBIT: Negative NOK 222 million
• Veedra EBIT: Positive SEK 128 million
• Full Year Operating Revenue: SEK 35.3 billion
• Net Profit After Tax: SEK 1.355 billion

Market Reaction

Norwegian Air Shuttle’s stock experienced a 2.99% increase following the earnings announcement. The stock’s performance reflects investor optimism about the company’s revenue growth and market position, despite ongoing profitability challenges. Trading at $46.21, the stock sits between its 52-week range of $43.30 to $54.96. InvestingPro analysis indicates the stock is fairly valued at current levels, with a P/E ratio of 5.57, suggesting attractive valuation metrics. For deeper insights into valuation analysis and more ProTips, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report available on InvestingPro.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Norwegian Air Shuttle plans to grow its capacity by 15% in the first quarter of 2025, with a gradual reduction to 2-0% thereafter. The airline expects to expand its fleet to 94-96 aircraft by the end of 2025. The company is focusing on cost reduction and capturing synergies from its acquisition of Veedra.

Executive Commentary

"We are optimistic. We are well prepared for the upcoming top season in the summer," said Geir, highlighting the company’s strategic readiness for increased travel demand. Additionally, Geir emphasized the impact of "Program X" on profitability, stating, "Program X will give effects on the profitability, both on the revenue side and on the cost side."

Risks and Challenges

• Achieving profitability remains a key challenge despite revenue growth.
• The corporate travel market is still recovering, reaching only 85-89% of 2019 levels.
• Potential macroeconomic pressures, including fluctuating interest rates and inflation.
• Competition in the Scandinavian market, despite Norwegian’s strong market share.

Norwegian Air Shuttle’s Q4 2024 earnings report highlights the airline’s ongoing recovery, driven by increased passenger numbers and strategic initiatives. With a market capitalization of $610.88 million and a return on assets of 12.67%, the company demonstrates improving operational efficiency. However, achieving consistent profitability remains a challenge as the company navigates a competitive and evolving market landscape. InvestingPro subscribers can access additional metrics and eight more exclusive ProTips about Norwegian Air Shuttle’s financial outlook and market position.

Full transcript - Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA (NAS) Q4 2024:

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Share on corporate side is increasing. I’ll get back to details on that. If you look at Norway and Avinuz airports, they are telling us that the passenger growth in 2024 was 5%. We are very happy that 70% of that growth has come our way either into a Norwegian aircraft or into a Veedre aircraft. That means that we are now over 50% market share in Norway.

Spend, the loyalty platform that we have developed together with Strawberry launched in November. Very exciting to see the development during the first three months. I’ll get back to details on that as well. We have had a small little fight with one of the ministries in Norway when it comes to ETS obligations. That was a court ruling that was finalized just recently where we had a full win.

That means that we are we will get back 400,000,000 plus interest of 8,000,000, 8 million in a penalty that we have already paid in. That case has been appealed by the ministry, so it will continue for a while and then we will see the results. We feel that we are well positioned in 2025. Boeing (NYSE:BA) has really performed well, I would say, during the last months. They are finally starting to deliver aircraft.

So far this year, meaning the last month, we have taken delivery of three brand new seven thirty seven MAX 8s. The third one is actually landing more or less as we speak in Copenhagen. That means that we have already taken delivery of three out of the four aircraft we are planning ahead of the summer season. So it’s really good to see that the production rates with Boeing is increasing and that we can plan and be comfortable with the fleet that we are planning to have during the peak season into the summer. The growth in 2025 will be in the area of 4%.

That is a growth that is coming down from the last couple of years where we have had 1813%. That means that we can focus more on streamlining the airlines, both of them, taking out synergies and to focus really on the cost and efficiency in both companies going forward. That’s also why we have launched a program called Program X. That is a profitability program that will focus on the cost side of the business, both airlines as well as revenue initiatives and the synergies between the two airlines. We are also going to spend a lot of time harvesting from a couple of smart investments that we have been doing.

One is the Videurer. The other one is our investments into a new distribution platform that is planned that we plan to go live in all markets within the next very few weeks. Passenger numbers, 6,200,000 passengers in the quarter. That’s 32% up year on year. Very happy to see that we are keeping the load factor between 8090%.

That is a load factor you’re seeing throughout the year. Also very happy to see that Veedre is increasing the load factor, five percentage points. Capacity wise, we are up 19 in the quarter compared to the same quarter in 2023. We are flying longer. That means that we have a sector length that is 10% longer this quarter.

So on passengers, our seats, we have an 8% increase. That means that we are flying more this winter to so called winter warm destination as well as Arctic holidays both in Norway and in Finland. Punjality, 78.4%. That is lower than what we like it to be. We have had some weather conditions, especially in late November and December, that has caused the punctuality to go down.

Regularity, 99.5%, ninety nine point one %. We would like that to be 99.5%, which is kind of the targets we are setting in the company. Passenger growth. As you can see here, we have this time we have added in 2023 in the gray bars so that you can see the growth from 23 to 24 per month. And as you can see, we have capped the load factor at 80% to 90%.

The yield is also at a stable level, I would say. If you look at November to January, we are actually flying approximately 30% less than what we did in the earlier months. If you look quarter against quarter, we are up 19%. It shows the seasonality that we have in this company and how we are going how we are managing the seasonality when we are reducing down the capacity. Looking at January, it’s also promising.

The traffic figures is out. That shows a 12% increase in passengers year on year. Veedre, similar. You are seeing here that Veedre is increasing the load compared to the previous year every month. And it’s very nice to see that Veedreux in 2024 actually had their best year ever financially, and they’re really performing well.

In Q4, close to 1,000,000 passengers, 13% up year on year and load at 73%. If you look at the full year, it’s 3,800,000 passengers, up 11% from 2023. And again, the load factor is also up to 72.3%. Very nice to see that the PSO routes that kicked in the new tender early in 2024. And even more promising is to see that the commercial part of Videra, meaning the network not subsidized by the Norwegian government, is also profitable, very profitable actually.

That has not necessarily been the case over the last years. However, in the fourth quarter, was experiencing, I would say, more than normal bad weather conditions. We also had an industrial action amongst the technicians that had an impact on the fourth quarter. And thereby, Widro’s fourth quarter was a little bit softer than what we anticipated when we entered the quarter. But overall, Hydro is performing well.

And looking at how 2025 looks for Hydro, twenty twenty five might be an even better year than 2024, Time will show. Bookings going forward. To the left, you can see seven day rolling sales on number of passengers. You can see the booking curve is very similar this year as we have seen over the last years. It’s looking promising, I would say.

The New Year’s campaign was a success, and we have been following that up with other campaigns as well to boost demand. For the first quarter in twenty twenty five will be the kind of the last quarter in a while where we are having a growth of more than 10%. So the first quarter is 15% up on capacity, while we from April onwards will have a growth compared to last year in the 5% and that will then be the case until the end of the year as well. If you look at the right hand side, booked revenue, you can see that we started up and this is for February to June travel. You can see that we were starting behind the 2019 curve.

But in during December, we passed 2019 and we have seen a slight boost over the last, say, month and one point five months, you could say. If you look at the load ahead, we are seeing that from April onwards, we are above the load compared to the same period. Last year, on yields, February and March will be affected by the longer sector length and the capacity growth as we also saw in the last quarter. If you look at the yields from second quarter onwards, it is stable to improving compared to last year. Looking at the March, I think you will have to have to look at that in combination with April due to the fact that Easter is coming in April this year.

And by that, March will be impacted by the by not having Easter and the high growth while you would have a boost then in April. But all in all, we are above on load compared to last year. And from April on, we are having a stable yield to improving yield compared to last year. We have a weak local currency in Noske Kruna. We have been affected by that throughout the whole of 2024 and not at least the last quarter.

If you look at the COSC in the company, we had 0.848 in 2023, zero point ’5 in 2024. We had headwinds on FX and inflation of approximately seven percent. And then we have been able to do cost savings, efficiency gains in the area of 3%. That’s why we’re ending up with shy of 4% increase in CASK. Again, comparing ourselves with the peers, we are quite happy with it.

We’re not happy, but we’re quite happy with that. The costs that are kind of affected by currency is typically then fuel, obviously. It’s technical maintenance where we are buying most of the spare parts, etcetera, in U. S. Dollars.

Leasing, airport charges outside of the Nordics, ATC fees, obviously, handling and crew. But the flip side of that, the flip side of having a weak local currency is that the inbound travel has been boosted over the year. Looking at the Avinor figures, they are reporting that in 2024, you have a 42% growth in inbound traffic compared to 2022 versus 18% growth on Norwegians traveling abroad. You are today seeing a bonanza, especially in you know, foreigners flying into You’re seeing a similar impact in North Of Finland, Rovaniemi as an example. And we are uniquely positioned, I would say, to capture this traffic flow, both flying passengers into Norway and not at least to spread all these passengers internally in Norway.

We have 85 aircraft based in Norway, Norwegian and Viedra today. And obviously, we can cover the whole market in a much better way than anybody else. So the flip side of the weak local currency is a boost on inbound travel. That is something that we have been fighting for a while to increase the inbound. And now we are seeing it as such.

On the corporate side, that is a part of the market where we have been putting in bets, I would say, the last two years. And we have been gaining market share massively over the last twenty four months. Looking at the avenue figures, you can say that today, the corporate domestic market is only 89% back, so 11% lower than 2019. On the international corporate travel or market, it’s actually 85% only 85% back. When we are talking to corporates, more and more of these are saying that they are flying now more than 50% with Norwegian.

And they’re also saying that due to the fact that you have an attractive network, you have the necessary frequencies, you’re on time and you’re not canceling. That makes the product just more attractive. We have signed up more than 3,000 new corporate agreements in 2024. And this is agreements we will benefit from over the next months and years. And we are seeing growth on all sales channels.

To the right, you can see that we have increased the number of passengers on the corporate side with 15% since 2019. You saw a fall in corporate travel from 2019 to 2023. And thereby, we have seen an increase of 19% since 2023 on corporate travelers. If you look at the revenues and the increase in revenues we have been seeing from 2019 to 2024, it’s up 50% on corporate travel. So there’s no doubt about the fact that we are gaining market share.

It is in general very positive. It also takes down the seasonality that we are exposed to due to the fact that the corporate travelers are more traveling twelve months a year. Veedro is having a higher portion of corporate travels than we have in Norwegian. So that is a benefit we are we will then take out during 2025 and 2026 because we are aligning the two networks in a better way than what we were able to do in 2024. Without doing that without having done anything really, we are regardless seeing an increase in the traffic flow between the two airlines in the area of 58% year on year.

That means there is many more passengers coming into a Norwegian aircraft than the alternative. And we do expect that, that will continue also through 2025. During 2025, we will also launch the new distribution platform, which means that you will also be able then to buy video tickets on the Norwegian web site. We are seeing also very positive trends in Sweden. We are also gaining market share in Sweden.

Sweden is more attractive now also due to the fact that they are removing the passenger tax from this summer. So we are increasing capacity in Sweden. We are opening up a pilot base now in April. It’s fully arranged and all the pilots are in place. And Sweden for us will be an important market in 2025 and 2026.

ViDRE have terminated the loyalty agreement with Aurobonus. It’s coming to an end in October year. And ViDRE will also then join Norwegian Reward, obviously, for the years to come. Reward. We have a very successful loyalty program in Norwegian Reward.

We have 4,400,000 members. We have done some tweaks in the Norwegian Reward program. We have implemented Norwegian Reward priority where you can unlock all benefits from after 32 flights. In November, we also launched the loyalty cooperationship platform together with Strawberry called SPEN. It has been a successful implementation.

As per today, more than 630,000 SPEN earners have earned SPEN in the on the platform is more than 4,000,000 transactions and $750,000,000 spend earned. Spend is working very hard. The Spen organization is working very hard to kind of increase the awareness As per today, it’s 33% and increasing. The focus now in Spain is to be to onboard new partners. As per today, we have full 14 fully fledged partners already integrated.

And there is a hard push in Spain in order to onboard typically then large Nordic corporates and time will show. And hopefully, we can be able to share news on that as soon as absolutely possible. So I would say spend, so far, so good. And the member base is increasing every day as we go. Hans Joer again.

Hans Joer, CFO, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Thank you, Geir. Good morning, everyone. Great to see you here. And I will go through the fourth quarter results in some more detail as I usually do, diving a little bit more into the figures. So the quarterly revenue increased to SEK 8,200,000,000.0, which is up 39% from last year, obviously impacted very much by the acquisition of Edora.

As you all know in 2023, we the Edora the figures were not part of our numbers. So they contributed 1,800,000,000. Norwegian capacity, as Gare said, was is up 19%. And we saw a slight reduction in unit cost year over year, but that was also, as mentioned earlier, triggered by longer stage length. Happy to see that the Norwegian ancillary revenues is also up to DKK 188 per packs, which is up from DKK 173 the year before.

Also the quarter group EBIT came in at a negative NOK 93,000,000. I’ll come back to the foreign exchange impact of that, which had a large impact. Norwegian had an EBIT of negative NOK $222,000,000 and Veedro came in at positive SEK 128,000,000. And as mentioned earlier, Veedro is performing very well, though in the fourth quarter, they had a few challenges due to weather conditions go slow and a few other issues. But overall, the performance of E du Ro for 2022 has really been very, very strong.

It’s also worth noting that in terms of our numbers, how we reported and we did go out in early January with a kind of revision to our estimates for 2024. And the EBIT for the full year came in, as mentioned earlier, at billion. And we had indicated and projected billion. So we’re a little bit above there. And it’s also worth noting that out of the billion, Vira contributed million or actually specifically million.

So a very, very good result for Vira also on the back of an acquisition price taking into account an acquisition price of 1,200,000,000.0 kronor. So it’s they’ve been it’s a strong year. As also mentioned earlier, the Norwegian kronor did have a material negative impact on the results in the fourth quarter. The Norwegian kronor went from 10.55 to 11.35, which is 80, a really, really heavy reduction, which impacted both our operating expenses, but even more so certain operating liabilities in our balance sheet that has to be repriced every month due to the foreign exchange. And that is what we call the gains and losses, the OGL.

Also unit cost, as mentioned earlier, at 0.53%, same as last year despite kind of the underlying cost increases, but that’s driven by, of course, the significant increase in NASK. Balance sheet position, strong balance sheet coming out of the quarter still SEK 9,900,000,000.0 of cash. And then we have, as earlier mentioned, invested about we have invested exactly SEK 1,000,000,000 in fixed income investment fund, which has been reclassified from cash to fixed income investments. They are liquid, so they can be they are kind of in some sense considered cash and they can be liquidated within a few weeks. So for us, it has generated more better interest or management or excess cash.

And actually so far, it has yielded between 12% higher than our other money markets funds, which we are quite happy with. And it’s actually exactly as expected on that part. Equity ratio, 19.3%, which is slightly up from last year from the previous quarter. And as mentioned earlier, we are planning or we will propose to distribute EUR 0.6 per share to the AGM to pay it out either as a dividend or as a buyback of shares. And that is, of course, subject to the approval from the Annual General Meeting and also subject approval or to the conditions under the company’s debt instruments.

So at the moment, we are not able to distribute anything, but we are working on that and I’ll come back to that in just a minute. A little bit of a further deep dive into the revenue development. First, starting with Norwegian, going from NOK5.9 billion to NOK6.4 billion, clearly saying that the volume increase in ASC of 19% contributing about SEK1 billion. Then we have a somewhat decrease due to the stage length on the yield, a load factor also a little bit down. And then we have the big item, which is the change in other revenue of SEK $372,000,000.

And that has to do with the kind of one off impact of COVID void of COVID at the end of twenty twenty three as well as the settlement with Bank Norwegian, which was recorded then in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three, which then brings us to SEK 6,400,000,000.0 in Norwegian and BIDRA contributing with SEK 1,800,000,000.0 of revenue. So a good contribution there consisting so VIDRA is then in reality 22% of the revenue of the group. Further also detail on the EBIT development since it’s quite material variations on that with the EBIT and volume impact having a positive impact, the yield and load in combination million Then obviously the other revenue that I mentioned, the million kind of one off non recurring impacts in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three of SEK $372,000,000, fuel price impacting positively, KASK doing the same. And then we have this particular impact on our liabilities in the balance sheet that has to be restated every quarter due to fluctuations in the foreign exchange rate contributing negatively with $232,000,000 and then also depreciation and conversational lease being a little bit higher than in the previous quarter sorry, in the last quarter in the same quarter last year, bringing us to $222,000,000 negative EBIT for the quarter.

And then adding, of course, EBITDAO at million brings us to minus million. It’s also worth noting and it’s not an excuse, but it’s also worth noting that if we take out the other gains and losses of million and also adjust for the non recurring items at NOK $3.72, the results the EBIT underlying EBIT result in Norwegian in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four is actually better than in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Just to summarize on the P and L, I think we’ve been through it largely. You will recognize the total number operating revenues, SEK1.2 billion, up 39. The EBIT minus SEK93 billion and a net loss of SEK223 million.

And as also mentioned earlier, you will see the nonrecurring impact on this particular line. We have additional flying FDs on the crew side, on the personnel expenses, which is higher. But it’s also at the same time just again repeating that it’s you cannot really compare Q4 ’twenty three with Q4 ’twenty four because Q4 ’twenty three does not include Vira. But it certainly, the wage inflation and additional FDs has an impact. Again, just follow summarizing the year, at SEK35.3 billion of operating revenues, a strong growth driven by both our own organic growth as well as the acquisition of Idra, EBIT of billion and a net profit after tax of SEK 1,355,000,000.000.

And due to our tax loss carryforwards, we are not recording any tax costs for this year. Balance sheet, not too much to say about the balance sheet. The total assets is very similar to the quarter before, SEK 37,500,000,000.0 of total assets versus and then SEK 37,600,000,000.0 at the end of this quarter. The largest changes on the balance sheet side is the impact of this, again, the strength of the U. S.

Dollar, which then has an impact on the asset values and liabilities relating to our aircraft, which are both denominated in U. S. Dollars and that’s driven. And that is kind of what’s driving, for instance, the tangible assets up to SEK 19,400,000,000.0, which is up one pretty much SEK 1,000,000,000. 1 important thing to note is on the air traffic liabilities, this number here, which is down 21%, but that’s due to seasonal variations.

And it’s really good to see that actually the part which belongs to the Norwegian part is up 18% compared with the same period last year, which means that the kind of pre bookings going into 2025 is at a good level compared with what we saw at the same time last year, of course, reflecting the increase in capacity. But at the same time, it’s good to that’s kind of a little bit of proof of the pudding that actually our pre bookings is in line with our capacity increases for the year. A few words on the net interest bearing debt going up just a little bit or increasing to 5,200,000,000.0, again driven largely by the increase in U. S. Dollars in U.

S. Dollar rate, which has an impact on the book value of our debt financing in U. S. Dollars and just a moderate then increase in sorry, decrease in our total liquidity. And in this measurement, it’s important that we when we define net interest bearing debt, it includes the liquid, but still recorded as a financial investment investments in the SEK1 billion area there.

A few words on the dividend proposal of or actually distribution proposal of 60 oder for 2024. It’s equivalent to a payout ratio of 48%, which we think is a prudent level. And it’s obviously will be used either as dividend payment or as buyback of shares. So we would like both authorities to have that flexibility to use those funds for that purpose. It’s subject to AGM approval and also subject to, let’s say, bondholder approval and how the issues relating to our existing bonds that is the convertible bond and as well as the retained claim bond is dealt with.

So at the moment, we are not allowed to pay anything. On top of that, we have already accumulated 85 OEURA from 2022 and 2023. And for 2023, the number was also 60. So it’s just kind of a stable, let’s say, payout ratio, distribution ratio. And at the moment, the board is sitting on authorization to also to pay 85 until the next AGM.

So this will come on top of that. The dividend fund has risen from $820,000,000 to $847,000,000 due to yield from those investments, which has been at about 6% for the period in question, which is a we think is a good yield on a low risk investment profile. Finally, cash flow, I think that’s roughly for the most part seasonal reduction in ticket prepayments always that’s always the case. Pretty good cash flow from operations at SEK 1,300,000,000.0. We have the investments, which are mainly the investments into the, again, the fixed income funds.

And then we have the regular repayments of aircraft leases at SEK $766,000,000, which ends up at then our cash balance per se ends up at SEK 9,800,000,000.0. And then we are conceptually adding the fixed income fund to that, which means that we’re coming out to the quarter with a very, very solid liquidity position at about SEK 11,000,000,000. All right. Thank you.

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: So just some final words. Looking a bit forward, if you a few details on Boeing. As mentioned, Boeing has really started to produce aircraft and to deliver aircraft. We have taken, as I said, three deliveries so far this year. The third one this morning.

We do anticipate to take delivery of 11 to 13 aircraft during 2025, which will take the fleet up to 94 to 96 aircraft by the end of this year. Even if Boeing has started to deliver aircraft, they are not delivering in a pace that was planned back in the days. So it means that in combination with the issues that Airbus is seeing and engine issues on the Pratt and Whitney engines, there will be less capacity coming into the market in total compared to how it looked a year or two ago. As we know as we can read today, there is approximately three fifty three twenty NEOs now on the ground due to these engine issues. That means that that should support kind of the market, meaning that we might see that the yields are keeping up longer than anticipated.

We do expect to take our first delivery of our own aircraft order late this year. We have 50 aircraft on order, as you know. We will also take a decision during the next six months on the 30 options we have on top of the 50 aircraft. And the options, as mentioned earlier, has even more attractive pricing than the firm 50 aircraft. Also, as mentioned, we have secured financing for the eighteen first aircraft.

We are going to own 13 of the twenty five first aircraft, while 12 is done or is about to be done on sale leaseback transactions. So that means that on the fleet side, we are comfortable for 2025 as well as for 2026. Looking at the trading environment that we are currently in, on the demand side, you can say that we do expect in Scandinavia that you will have a real wage growth in 2025, which should support the demand. You should expect a fall the falling interest rates, which should also be positive for the demand. And also, the inflation has come down over the last, let’s say, last six to nine months, which is probably why we’re also seeing that the bookings going forward is looking promising.

We said that we are above on load from the second quarter onwards, and we have a stable or improving yield as well in the same period. In Norwegian, we have invested a lot during the last couple of years into growing the company. Last year, we employed close to 700 new colleagues. This year, we are not growing that much. That means that we can focus much on streamlining both airlines and the relationship between the airlines.

And we can focus even more on the cost side of the business. So that is the main focus in 2025. And that’s also why we have started a program X, which was launched in the fourth quarter last year. Is a profitability program that will run at least until the end of twenty twenty six. This program will give effects it will give effects on the profitability, both on the revenue side and on the cost side.

I also established a new position, Chief Performance Officer in my executive team with sole responsibility and the obligation to focus on this profitability program. Sornet Du Allnes is appointed. She has been with Norwegian for a while and is very well fitted to take on that role. So the focus will be cost reductions. It will be capturing the synergies with Viedra.

It will take out all the the effects from us launching a new distribution platform. And they’re going to make sure that we are also taking out efficiency gains when it comes to running the two airlines as such going forward. We’re also going to harvest from, as I said, the distribution platform, which will give us increased functionality. It will give us new measures on upselling. It will give us new functionality when it comes to distribution.

It will also be the first time where Norwegian can do proper interlining with potential other airlines. That’s why we have also in parallel been working on a partnership strategy. I hope to share news on that as well during 2025. And we will also have be taken out the full effect on the network synergies between Norwegian and Viedra. That we really didn’t see in 2024.

But in 2025, we will start seeing that. So this is a program which has a massive focus internally in Norwegian. We have been putting a lot of resources into it, and it will give results over the next twelve to twenty four months. In summary, it is early in 2025. We have started the Program X.

It will give effects. So as per today, we are giving a guidance on capacity. So the first quarter of twenty twenty five will be the last quarter in a while where where we will have a significant growth. Then that growth is coming down to 2% and down to 0% in Q4, as mentioned. On unit cost, we are now guiding on a single digit percentage increase versus 2024.

I hope that we can come back later with a more precise guiding as such. And on Programme X, I hope we can also come back and give you more details on the program also with the financial impact on the different work streams that we have started. So with that, just to summarize, I mean, we are optimistic. We are well prepared for the upcoming top season in the summer. We have employed the colleagues we need.

We have the aircraft that we need. We are seeing positive signs on the booking. And Boeing is delivering aircraft again. And we are very excited to see what we can get out of the program, Max.

Moderator: Yes, Bert. Okay. And then we open up for let me get you back. Yes. And then we open up for some Q and As.

We’ll start with the audience. Any questions from the audience today?

Audience Questioner: Two questions from me. You have a regularity target of 99.5%. I didn’t have to say any punctuality target, which currently is around

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: slightly below 80% at least in Q4. I think we have been we are top five on neutrality in Europe as mentioned. In 2023, we were actually slightly above that. The target internally is 85%. That’s what we are striving for every single day.

Audience Questioner: So we are learning that Ryanair is closing their base in Bilden in and a loss in 2024. They had around 1,250,000 passengers using their flights, Oldboygan, BILION and some other airports in the Nordic Baltic area. Business opportunities for Norwegian as Ryanair is reducing their presence in Denmark?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Well, Denmark is obviously a well functioning market for us as well and it has been that for quite a while. And if you look at the growth we have been having over the last couple of years, a huge portion of that growth have actually gone to Denmark. That’s why we are also have been also focusing on even more domestic routes in Denmark in 2024, as you know, Anzio Bergen. And do we see an effect of Ryanair pulling out? Yes, we do.

And then we will have to see where is Ryanair going to put or to place those aircraft. Is it going to be in Southern Europe or is it going to be other places? So yes, it’s a positive.

Moderator: Okay. We’ll then move on to some questions from the web. We start with Hans Erik Jacobsen from Nordea. You guide for plus single digit increase in non fuel cost ex fuel. Is this low, mid, high single digit?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Very long on a single digit cost increase. And then hopefully, we could come back and to be monetized later. It’s early in the year. And we will also have a better overview on the Programme X and how what that can achieve. So hopefully, we can narrow that guiding during the next quarters.

Okay. Then moving on to

Moderator: a question from Andrew Lobenberg in Barclays (LON:BARC). If you could offer any more details on Programme X apart from harvesting the VEDARO synergies, it seems rather generic, he says. Is it more revenue? Is it more cost? What will you do?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: I think on the revenue initiatives, I think I’ve been through it with the distribution platform. It’s in flight sales. It’s ancillaries in general. It’s the abilities for upselling. It’s the increased functionality on the new distribution platform.

On the cost side, we are talking about yes, we are talking about the synergies between the two airlines, what can we do to streamline the support functions. But it is also kind of the core cost level in both airlines on a stand alone basis, which will also be applicable for this program. So it’s a kind of a process that will take us through all parts of both airlines as such, including the synergies.

Moderator: Okay. Another question from Andrew Lobbenberg, SES, now out of bankruptcy. Are they winning back some of the corporate traffic that you gained in recent years?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: I don’t think so. As I mentioned earlier, we are gaining market share. Very also good to see that the growth that we have seen in Norway, for example, we have catched 70% of that growth into both our airlines. What we have been seeing from SAS lately is probably that they are more even they’re more aggressive than normal on pricing, which we can tackle. Okay.

Moderator: One final question from Andrew. Status of labor relations across the various group various companies in the group?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Well, 2024 was a hectic year when it comes to the unions, and we reached agreements with all of them. So now we have two to four years full year agreements with all of them except the pilots in Norway where we will reach a new agreement during the fall of twenty twenty five.

Moderator: Moving on to a question from Ulla Martin Vasco at DME Markets. How much did wet leases impact your operations in 2024? And what are your plans there for 2025?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Right now, we have a very limited need for vet lease into the coming summer. Will we have zero? Well, let’s see. It might be but it will be much less than last year. I think the impact on that lease in 2024 were somewhere between 300,000,000 and 400,000,000.

Moderator: Okay. And also another question from Olmachten. If you can give some an update on how much you’ve taken out to crystallize all the synergies for Veedra and what can we expect in 2025?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: We are not guiding on that as such. I think if you look at the numbers today, we have probably taken out what we promised, which it was between 300,000,000 and 400,000,000. Are there more to gain? Yes, there are. And hopefully, we can take out most of those synergies during 2025, but we will probably use 2025 to do that.

Okay.

Moderator: And then a question from Tokel Dalan from Anaxo. Last year, this time, you guided on EBIT. You’re not guiding on EBIT now, but can you give us any estimates, any thoughts about where you’re seeing EBIT for the full year of ’twenty five?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: No, because we are not guiding on the EBIT for the time being. And then we will see what we will do on guiding both on CASK and other measures as we go and when we get further into 2025. Okay.

Moderator: Another question from him is, in the previous quarter, you guided on 90 aircraft or let’s call it circa 90 aircraft for the summer of ’twenty five. Now you’re saying 88. How does this impact your outlook for the year?

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Year? Well, I think last year, we were planning for a number of aircraft. And as mentioned earlier here, we didn’t receive all those aircrafts. This year, we have been more conservative when it comes to betting on how many aircraft we will get. And as I said, we are betting on three to four aircraft.

We have already received three. The next one is coming in April, if, you know, listening to Boeing. So that’s why we’re quite comfortable, much more comfortable this year than last year because we’ve been playing it a little bit more conservatively. Okay.

Moderator: That includes all the questions from the web. I’ll just check if there’s any more questions from the audience. There are not. So we’ll conclude the session there.

Geir, CEO or Senior Executive, Norwegian Air Shuttle: Thank you. Thank

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.