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Half Year 2021 Earnings

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Half Year 2021 Earnings Half Year 2021 Earnings th Friday, 30 July 2021 Half Year 2021 Earnings Friday, 30th July 2021 Luis Gallego Chief Executive Officer, International Airlines Group Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for IAG's half year results. I am here today with Steve Gunning, our CFO, and the CEOs of our operating companies. We will shortly take you through our performance for the second quarter. But before Steve and I take you through the details, I thought that it would be useful to provide some context and set out how we have approached the past six months to ready the business in the short-term and also to reposition it for the future. So, I am not going to tell you that the environment has been challenging, you know that very well. We have been faced with constantly changing restrictions in different parts of the world, with only some easing from the beginning of July. And this has led to a pre-exceptional loss of €1 billion for the quarter. On a positive note, we welcome the recent announcement that fully vaccinated travellers from Amber countries in the EU and the US will no longer have to quarantine upon arrival in the UK. We see this as an important first step in fully reopening the transatlantic travel corridor. But despite the loss, our liquidity remains strong at €10.8 billion on a pro-forma basis, including last week's EETC of BA. Our operating cash flow in Q2 has significantly improved over the previous quarter as a result of better EBITDA and a strong forward-bookings. It is proof of what we already know; people do want to fly. There is a widespread pent-up demand which is evident where restrictions are lifted. For example, within a couple of hours, British Airways saw bookings from the US surging 95% compared to the previous week, following the UK government's announcement. Also, US point of sale saw an increase when EU countries, such as Spain, opened up travel to those who are fully vaccinated. Visiting families and friends and leisure travel, both shorthaul and longhaul, have shown the strongest evidence of pent-up demand. So as a management team, we have devoted significant resources to ensuring our operational readiness so that when demand returns we are able to capitalise. I am pleased that all of our people across the Group have risen to that challenge. Our role is to work on both the short- term impact of the crisis, but building resilience and boosting liquidity while accelerating our plans to design our future for the longer term. We recognise that the industry will be different. Flexibility is key in the new normal. We are preparing the business so that we can emerge a stronger and more competitive in a structural changed industry. All our airlines continue to take significant action to preserve their strength so they are well-placed for recovery. The requirement for each of them has been slightly different during this period. Aer Lingus has been the most challenged as a result of the tougher restrictions in Ireland which, I am glad, were lifted on 19th July. After its initial restructuring last year, Aer Lingus has announced further restructuring measures. The airline has had constructive discussions with its pilot representatives. The agreements were to put the pilots in a ballot who approved them. Half Year 2021 Earnings Friday, 30th July 2021 The airline will also open a new base in Manchester in September to serve US and Caribbean destinations. Last year, British Airways worked closely with its unions to reach new agreements on how their people work. We are grateful to them for their engagement with is enabling BA to improve productivity, reduce its cost base, and increase the proportion of variable cost. This means when capacity is back to 2019 levels, employee unit costs will be as much as 10% lower than in 2019. This gives us the flexibility to respond quickly to customer demand in a fast-moving environment and the agility to make the most of the recovery. The airline has been quickly repositioning its network to capture more connecting traffic between North America and the EU, and beyond, such as Africa, where passenger flows are stronger. As you will see, domestic demand in Spain is already near pre-COVID level, including some increases in corporate travel from our SME customers. Both Iberia and Vueling were the best Group performers in Q2, reflecting a strong Latin American and domestic market driven by fewer travel restrictions. Both have implemented various cost reduction measures. As a result, Iberia's MRO and handling activities were close to breakeven, while Iberia Express made an operating profit in Q2, something from my point of view extraordinary. Vueling achieved positive operating cash flow as a result of more capacity and a higher load factor than the rest of the Group and its good cost control during the quarter. IAG Cargo had a record quarter in terms of revenue, which continues to enable and support a more extensive longhaul passenger network. And finally, IAG Loyalty has been profitable and cash generative throughout the pandemic. Non-airline partners spending has been buoyant, and we have improved our customer proposition in terms of Avios redemption with both our airlines and new partners. More broadly, we have been accelerating the digitalisation of our business, IAG is ahead of the game in developing user-friendly digital solutions to provide the tools and reassurance our passengers need to travel with confidence, despite complex travel restrictions currently. Moreover, we continue to lead the industry's effort to make flying sustainable. British Airways EETC to fund seven aircraft that will be delivered this year is linked to airline’s sustainability target and will remain resolute in our climate commitment. As you know, IAG has a unique usage business model which has been incredibly successful in the last ten years, and it is why we came into this crisis with such a strategic and financial spring. And now, we are presenting ourselves to connect people, businesses and countries better than ever. We do so with confidence. We expect to fly 45% of 2019 capacity in Q3, which would be double the developed capacity in the second quarter. We are operationally ready to fly as much as 75% of 2019 capacity in Q4. So, I am optimistic that we can succeed whatever shape the recovery takes. Finally, for me, for now, a brief comment on Air Europa. Iberia submitted its phase I proposal to the European Commission at the end of May. And at the end of June, the Commission decided to investigate further, and went to phase II. So now, let us look at the details of IAG's half year results with Steve. Half Year 2021 Earnings Friday, 30th July 2021 Steve Gunning Chief Financial Officer, International Airlines Group Thanks, Luis. Good morning, everybody. I will take you through the key points in relation to the Q2 results. So, turning to slide eight. This slide shows some of the key KPIs for the period. And if we look at the top-left, relative to 2019, we operated slightly more capacity in Q2 than Q1. In addition, the planes were 6% fuller. However, both load factor and capacity, were both well below the quarter two 2019 levels. This reflects the ongoing government restrictions, particularly in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Bear in mind, that the non-essential travel bans were only relaxed in the UK on 17th May, and in the Republic of Ireland on 19th July. If we look at the top-right, quarter two operating losses were €1.045 billion in Q2, which is €90 million better than Q1. Not surprising that the Q2 performance is broadly in line with previous quarters given the capacity remains constrained by government restrictions. As we discussed in previous quarters, the financial performance is not homogeneous amongst the IAG airlines, and we will touch more on this in subsequent slides. Moving on to debt, on the bottom-left of the slide. Net debt has risen by €2.3 billion in the quarter to €12.1 billion in the first half. Gross debt has increased by €4.1 billion driven by our numerous liquidity actions, including an IAG unsecured bond, an IAG convertible bond, and BA's UK Export Finance loan. You can see on the bottom-right that these actions, plus the sustainability-linked EETC, which we completed in July, have seen our pro-forma liquidity reach €10.8 billion, which represents 42% of 2019 revenues. Turning to slide nine, and looking at the Q2 operating performance versus prior years. Not intending to review every line, but a few significant points here. Passenger revenue was down 88.6% compared to 2019 due to the ongoing travel restrictions limiting the capacity we could operate. Cargo continues to perform well. Revenue was up 49% versus 2019. This is a larger increase than we saw in Q1, where it was up 27%. The €419 million revenues reported in Q2 was a record for any quarter for IAG Cargo. It was boosted by 1,371 cargo-only flights in the quarter. It's also worth noting that during the half the air cargo industry volumes have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels and this is due to very strong activity in Asia, North America, and Europe. In terms of costs, they were down 60% versus 2019 compared with capacity down 78%. This equates to an expected and a healthy cost variability of 77%.
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