7/25/2024

speaker
Operator

Conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ben Smith, CEO, and Stephen Zat, CFO. Please go ahead, Sirs.

speaker
Ben Smith
CEO

Okay, thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning for the presentation of Alphonse KLM's results for the second quarter of 2024. I'm joined today by Stephen Zat, our CFO. We'll be available to take your questions at the end of this presentation. And I'll start by sharing some of this quarter's key highlights, and then I'll turn it over to Stephen for a detailed presentation of our financial performance and the outlook for the quarters ahead. And lastly, I'll wrap it up at the end and then open it up for the Q&A. So let's start by looking at our financial performance for this quarter. We transported more passengers this quarter than the same period last year. Group revenue and capacity are both up 4%. and our low factor remains stable. Our operating result is down compared to the same quarter in 2023, in part due to sluggish performance, and KLM and Transavia were the ones who were a bit sluggish, and although both companies managed to stabilize their numbers, however, Air France activity was weak due to a variety of exceptional items, in particular, a significant exposure to the Olympic Games, which negatively affected June inbound and outbound traffic in Paris, as stated in our dedicated communication on the subject earlier this month. On the balance sheet side, our net debt to EBITDA ratio stood at 1.6 times, essentially because of the high level of net investments for this quarter. Overall, our cash position is solid and our financial leverage is tightly monitored. The ongoing renewal of our fleet is progressing steadily with the continuous delivery of new generation aircraft. Today, these aircraft represent 23% of the total fleet versus 18% in June of last year. We've also further tightened our cost control initiatives with one, a 20% reduction in discretionary spending for the second half of the year, two, an acceleration of our organizational transformation, and three, a hiring freeze for non-operational overhead staff, all this while preserving core strategic investments to renew our fleet. Moving to slide four, overall our commercial strategy is showing good momentum and we're seeing positive revenue trends across multiple key areas. Progress on our premiumization strategy is paying off. Premium revenue grew 7.4% compared to last year and its share of total revenue continues to rise, thereby improving the quality mix of our revenue. The premium leisure segment has been a significant contributor and has grown considerably since 2019. both in absolute and relative terms. We expect that this trend will continue to drive revenue in the future. Other key aspects of our commercial strategy are positively affecting revenue development, including an increase of 8% in total direct sales with a direct online channel outgrowing other channels by an impressive 10% compared to last year. A 5% growth in corporate revenue driven by a healthy yield and strong momentum across medium and long-haul activity alongside a decrease in short haul business travel that reflects our domestic flight reduction plan. And lastly, an 11% growth in ancillary revenues with an increased contribution per passenger for all product groups, including seating, upgrades, baggage, and others. Moving on now to slide five. One of the key pillars of our overall strategy is the continued strengthening of our business model, notably through strong partnerships. To that end, we have successfully signed a joint venture deal with Airbus to provide Airbus A350 component maintenance services worldwide. This partnership will offer a best-in-class platform for MRO activities for the next generation of aircraft and allow us to tap into other related opportunities such as repair services, spare parts, and cost-related synergies. Going forward, we will explore the potential scalability of this joint venture to include cooperation on Airbus A220 components. We expect to close this deal by the end of 2024 or early 2025. Our strategic 19.9% minority share investment in SAS, Scandinavian Airline Systems, is another great example of mutually beneficial partnerships with a local leader that allows us to play to our respective strengths. The deal is expected to close by the next quarter. In the meantime, SAS will join the SkyTeam Alliance as of September 1st, 2024, with the new code share and interline agreements going into effect on the same date. Thanks to these agreements, Alfons and KLM customers will gain access to 33 destinations in Northern Europe from SAS's hubs in Copenhagen and Stockholm. Moving out of slide six. During our investor day in December of last year, we explained Flying Blue's contribution to the group's results, showcasing its essential role in contributing to revenue growth and building strong relationships with our clients across airlines and beyond. In the second quarter of 2024, Flying Blue continued to deliver, generating 208 million euros in revenue, including from third-party airline and non-airline partners, as the program continues to expand beyond our airline business. As of the mid-year mark, our loyalty program has steadily attracted 9% more new active members compared to the same period last year, and now boasts over 12 million total active members. We've also observed a steady 16% growth of our members earning and burning miles within the program. As I've mentioned, Flying Blue continues to partner with a growing number of non-airline businesses. For instance, this quarter we welcomed Uber, and Revolut as new commercial partners, providing our clients with ever more possibilities to earn or convert miles while using their favorite services. I'll now turn it over to Steven, who will go into more detail about our performance for the second quarter. Steven.

speaker
Stephen Zat
CFO

Yeah, thanks, Ben. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would lie if I would not say that the second quarter is disappointing. We had a lot of headwinds like the Olympics, the iCargo impact and the negative fuel price. But we have to keep in mind that it's still the third best quarter in our history. We are comparing it with a record result in 2023 of more than 700 million. In 2017, we made 588 million. And now we are at 530 million with all these headwinds against us. Of course, we have a higher ambition, but it's still much better than what we did in 2019 when we made just 423 million. So let's take a look at the figures. Let's go to page eight. If you look, as Ben already explained, the revenues are up 4% despite a negative impact of the Olympics. That brings, at the end of the day, we have an operating result which is minus 220 million. And the graph on the right is showing actually the root causes. Let's first go to the Pax unit revenue. So the Pax unit revenue, despite the Olympics of 40 million, is still slightly up with 32 million. The cargo unit revenue, we had the impact of the iCargo. We already explained that in the last quarter call. It moved also actually to the May period. We see it's not that the operations are still very much impacted. Of course, they were impacted, but it's also that we have some bookways that the total impact of 15 million on the results of Air France cargo, and that's more or less, let's say, the cargo unit revenue decline. And if you look at the April, May, and June, you see that the cargo revenues are picking up. We started with a minus 9.5% in April and in June, we are at plus 3.2%. So there are some green springs in this results, which giving trust in the future and the recovery in our operating results year over year. Then the fuel price, it is a little bit an outlier. We know that last year, the fuel price was very low in the second quarter. It moved up later during the year. Last year, we had a fuel price of close to 750 per metric ton, and now we are at 800 per metric ton. But we will see that we have a fuel benefit in the coming quarters if we compare year over year. And then the unit cost, we already guided you that it would be up 2%. We are slightly below that with 1.7%. It's coming in, it's coming actually from all the labor cost increases we have. We signed an NRO on Air France, which kicked in in April. and the CLA increases of KLM kicked in after September, so last year. So we have a year-over-year, let's say, deterioration mainly related to the labor cost increases. The good news is that the operations are stabilizing, so we see the customer compensation is really coming down. And in June, we were even, let's say, the winners in Europe amongst our legacy carriers with KLM at number one and Air France at number two as operational performance. So very strong operational performance, despite the very complex situation which we are all in, if you also looked at all the announcements of our competition. If we then go to page nine, you see that we have a capacity increase of close to 3%. Then we have a unit revenue which is slightly down. If you take out the Olympics impacted, it was 40 million, of which 35 million was in the passenger side at Air France. It would have been up 0.6%. Then the cargo, I already explained. So we are at minus 4.4. The iCargo impact was 3.1% on the unit revenues. So if you would take that out, we are more or less flattish year over year on our unit revenue on the cargoes. And then the positive surprise, we increased capacity by 12% and unit revenue went up by 4.5% for Transavia, which is very strong, much driven also by our EBIT improvement plan. So we introduced the paid hand luggage, which brought 3.2% out of this 4.5%. And there's more to come. It was more than 20 million in the second quarter. We expect more than 60 million this year. and we expect more than 100 million next year. And with that improvement of our unit revenues, you see also that year over year, our operating results are improving at Transavia. On the maintenance, we see that we are signing contracts, we are delivering the shop visits, et cetera, but we had, let's say, some one-offs, or let's say it's related still to the operational support, We outsource the maintenance at KLM. So we wanted to make people available on the line maintenance part. And also we have a lot of costs related to the loan. So all these airframe activities to support our operations, to be best in class of our operations, are paying off in our operational performance. But we had around 20 million of impact in the maintenance. And that is, you could also say you should have that in the network, but it is still registered here in the maintenance. But the maintenance external business is very dynamic with a growth of 23% year over year. If we then go to the comparison between Air France and KLM, let's start with KLM. KLM is quite stable. It was driven by an increase in the punctuality and we also reduced our disruption costs and we had a positive unit revenue development. So all in all, it brought that we are more or less stable at KLM, despite the fact that we carved out part of the flying blue results, because those are now at the group and they were last year they were in, uh, let's say in the airline results. So for the, of the 54 million, let's say 15 million, at least would have been in, uh, the KLM results. At Air France, uh, it was a tough quarter for Air France. Uh, I already explained, we had the iCargo, which cost us 50 million. We had the Olympics, which cost us 40 million. Then the flying blue is also another 40 million. And then with all the salary increases, uh, et cetera, our unit cost is increasing by 100 million this quarter. And we had a negative fuel impact of 40 million, and the remaining part is mainly related to the geopolitics. We still miss three routes on Africa, which hurts us, which is in terms of unit revenue around 50 million. So that explains the quarterly, let's say, divergence between Air France and KLM, and we expect that to pick up in the coming quarters. Then going to the world picture, so we see a flattish unit revenue despite, again, the impact of the Olympics. The premium is doing very strong. So we increased our capacity by more than 5%. We increased our load factor to 75%, and we increased also our yield. So the premium is doing well, both from the, let's say, the leisure premium and also the corporate traffic, as explained by Ben. We see now also that the corporate traffic is going faster than our increase in capacity. And where it hurts at this moment is especially in the back. So at the economy, you see that we have a yield pressure of minus 1.7% in the economy class. Looking at the long haul, you see North America, we increased significantly capacity with 6.2%. We could keep on more or less the yield, but it had a detrimental impact on the load factor. On South America, yields are coming down, but that is no surprise. We see that the South American carriers are coming out of Chapter 11, and that brings, of course, more capacity into this market. The Caribbean, very strong, but we cut capacity there with more than 6%. And Africa, despite the fact that we lost these three routes to the west of Africa, You see that by the reduction of capacity by 6%, we are still able to have a strong yield increase year over year, and even the load factor is strong at 85%. And then Asia, Asia is growing with 14%. We had a steep increase in China with 56%. It's good to see that we are still holding up the load factor over there, but that has an impact on the yields in that region. And last but not least, Transavia on the right again, 12% growth, a flattish load factor at the high level at 90%, and a 4.5% yield increase, mainly driven also by the ancillaries. The short and medium haul, let's say our European network, it's a little bit of a mixed impact. We grew at KLM more than at Air France. That has an impact on the average yield, and otherwise we would have been slightly up. If you then go then to page 12, you see that we were slightly negative in operating free cash. We still have a positive impact of the working capital. We had a high investment level, but the high investment level is on purpose. We try to get the planes in before the summer. And that results that we have a higher investment in the first half year than we will have the second half year. We will phase out the old planes after the summer. We had five new A350s at Air France, we had eight A320s and 21s at Transavia, and we had four A220s for Air France. If you then take out the exceptionals, I explained that already last time, we had a payment of more than 600 million to the pilots pension funds, and we still have to pay back to the states, the social charges and the wage tax at KLM. If you take that $850 million out and you include the payment of the lease and the net interest, you see that we are having a positive adjusted operating free cash flow. That brings the leverage to $6.2 billion, which is, let's say, the leverage at $1.6 billion, which is, let's say, in the guidance, which we gave between $1.5 billion and the $2 billion, and we still have a solid cash at hand. We took actions on the CAPEX, so we will guide you also that we are going to less than $3 billion to optimize the CAPEX in such a way to protect our adjusted operating free cash flow. Then let's go to the outlook. This is, of course, I know for all the investors who are listening, what is the $1 billion question? How will the summer look like? Now, you see that the booking load factor on the long haul and the short, medium haul and on Transavia is, let's say, deteriorating compared to last year, but that's mainly explained to the Olympics. The impact of the Olympics has really been done on a line-by-line item and also comparison with KLM, so we could exactly see on which route it was coming. But at the end of the day, we, of course, don't know all the customers which didn't come. But it gives the trend, the differential between Air France and KLM in this quarter. If you look at it, we have an impact of the Olympic of 200 million, 40 million is in Q2, 160 million is in the third quarter and 125 million is on the passenger business of Air France. That is a vast impact of around 2%. If we would not have this impact, We should be slightly positive on Air France KLM level in the third quarter RASC. If you look at Transavia, the impact is in the third quarter, 35 million. There was 5 million in Q2. In Q3, it will be 35 million. That is a RASC impact of around 4%. And we still expect that Transavia, because the RASC is very strong at the moment, will be positive in the third quarter. And what is good to see is that if you look at the post-Olympic Games, so if you look at Q4, you see that our booking load factor is exactly in line as what it was last year. So in that view, we see really that Q3 is an outlier coming from the Olympics in Paris. Let's then move to page 15, looking at the unit cost. So we announced already last time that we take measures and we have stopped hiring people at the corporate. So the SENA, we have a total hiring fees, which will lead to job reductions. We continue with new fleet delivery, which will also support our unit cost. We cut our marketing cost further, and we took an action to cut 20% of our discretionary cost in the second half year. What are these costs? Those are duty travel, those are legal, those are consultancy, those are IT supplies, all the costs which we can cut without hurting our operations. And we have a strong control on that. We discuss that every two to three weeks in our JEC, and we are all focusing on to make sure that at the end of the day, we deliver on the unit cost, as we did in the second quarter, because we are still lower than what we had forecasted for this quarter. We expect 2% in Q3, which is still related to the salary increases, partly at Air France because what we gave in the annual per April and also on KLM because the salary increase of KLM started at the end of September. So that still, if you compare quarter over quarter, there is an impact. You see that on Q4, we expect to be zero-ish in terms of unit costs. We will not have the customer compensation of last year. And at the same time, all the increase of labor costs are already in our cost levels of the fourth quarter last year. Then on the hedge or on the fuel bills, better to say. So we had a headwind in the second quarter. We will have a tailwind in the third and the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, we expect around 80 million positive impact coming from the fuel price. And in Q4, we expect even more than 200 million. so uh and and with that it's good to know that we already hedged the 70 for the full year and we have already had 34 of next year so well protected for that and we see that the fuel price actually in the last weeks is coming down let's go then to page 17 so the group capacity we guide now at four percent we are really really aiming to stabilize the operation so we took some capacity out So, previously, we were at 5%. We are now aiming at 4% to stabilize the operations even further. And on the unit cost, we are, let's say, at the high range of the 1% to 2%. So, we guide now 2% because we reduced our capacity. And usually, 1% capacity is 0.3% in terms of unit cost. And in net capex, we will optimize that further to make sure that we are below the 3 billion for the full year. Then we come to page 18, and I think this is a very important page. Let's first start. I think we really have some headwinds this year. We had a tight labor market in the Netherlands. It was difficult to have all the maintenance people on board. We had issues. We have issues on the supply chain. We are partly solving it, but it's not completely solved, and it takes some time to solve that. But in the coming years, that needs to be solved. That led to higher customer compensation, that led also to lower capacity, which also has a negative impact on our productivity. And it also led to fewer inefficiencies because you are going to speed faster to make up in your operation. In total, that is at least 300 million, which we have currently in our results and mainly is coming actually from the last two months. Then we have the Olympics, 200 million. The Olympics, you do it once in the 100 years. So we don't expect that this comes soon in the years to come. And then we had the unfortunate high cargo impact of 35 million. So in total, there is 500 million, which will catch up in 25, if you compare that to 2024. And we continue with all our initiatives. We continue to recruit pilots and make sure that we have sufficient maintenance stuff, which is now The maintenance staff is getting under control. We will further increase our fleet utilization and our punctuality. And we stand by our 2 billion structural improvement plan to 2028 versus 2023. The fleet renewal is going on. That's 5%. The productivity will come when we have all the operations back on track and especially fly more also on the long haul. The revenue initiatives, we have seen the loyalty. It was growing with 10%. The ancillaries grew, as Ben explained, by 11%, and we expect even a further growth in the third and the fourth quarter. And the paid hand luggage, as an example, we spoke about increasing our ancillaries on Transavia. 60 million it will bring this year, and it will bring more than 100 million in the years to come. With that, I hand over for Ben for the conclusive slides.

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