International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (IAG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the IAG 2023 Third Quarter Update. Today, as usual, I have the rest of the Management Committee here with me, as well as the Investor Relations Team. This has been another strong quarterly performance for IAG. We have delivered a record operating profit for the third quarter of 1,745 million euros. Sustained demand across our network has driven significant positive revenue performance across all our airlines. The very good unit revenue trend from earlier this year has continued this quarter, up 25% compared to Q3 2019 and up 2.2% against a very strong third quarter in 2022. As we have said throughout the year, While leisure has been good, corporate demand continues to recover more slowly, particularly at British Airways, although this is less relevant for the third quarter. And cost performance was good. Non-fuel cash was 3.5% better than Q3 2022, including the negative impact of disruption. So as a result, we have delivered a group operating profit margin of over 20%, including very strong margin performance at Aer Lingus and at our Spanish Airlines. The other main development in the quarter was that we took the opportunity to reduce our gross debt, repaying early the expensive £2 billion UKF loan that we have had to take out during COVID. As a consequence of this, we are pleased that S&P has upgraded both IAG and British Airways to investment grade. And overall, our continued strong performance means that we remain on track to deliver a year of a strong recovery in 2023 in terms of operating profit, margins, and in particular, our balance sheet. And with that, I will pass it on to Nicolas. Thank you, Luis. And good morning, everybody. I'll start with the profit bridge for quarter three, highlighting both the drivers of the imp...