Finnair Oyj

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Erkka Salonen from Finner IR, and it's my pleasure to welcome you all to this Finner fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. I have here with me Finner's CEO, Mr. Topi Manner, and he is joined by the CFO, Mr. Mikas Tirkkinen, for the Q&A session. I will now turn this call over to you, Topi. Please, Topi.

Thank you, Erkka, and good day, everybody. Thank you for joining this earnings call. And it is time to wrap up year 20 for Finnair. Some of you might remember that early on in the pandemic, when the lockdown started in March, we stated that we will be facing the worst crisis ever in the 100-year history of commercial aviation, at least during the peace time. And with the benefit of the hindsight, we really can say that so it has been. Yet, in this uncharted territory, we at Finnair, we have been creating a path for ourselves through the pandemic. And we have been doing that with extensive recapitalization and by resetting our cost base, which have secured a healthy financial position and cash position for ourselves. So, looking at the Q4 just very quickly, we still flew very little during the Q4, only 70 flights per day, carrying 8% of the passengers that we carried in 2019. We saw that toward the end of the quarter, end of the year, many countries, many airlines started to introduce negative COVID tests as a prerequisite of entering the aircraft. And we have been doing that as well. And that has been operationally very smooth and something the requirement is something that is well understood by our customers. And setting that requirement has not had any further negative impact to our passenger numbers. The routes domestically in Finland, especially to Lapland, continue to be among the most popular routes that we are currently operating. Cargo continues to play a significant role in our business. Currently more than 50% of our revenue comes from cargo and the cargo only flights given the current market prices per ton for air cargo are profitable on their own right. The highlight of the year and the highlight of Q4 also is that our customer satisfaction is on record high levels. So measured with net promoter score, the net promoter score is at 52 and clearly trending above the previous year. At present we still have unfortunately majority of our staff furloughed. We have aircraft parked in Prague and in southern France and we are proceeding with our cost savings initiatives and we are proceeding well according to plan on those both in terms of immediate temporary course savings as well as structural permanent course savings. So just quickly running through the Q4 numbers, our revenue landed at 102 million euros, which was approximately 13 percent of that of Q4 2019. Our comparable operating result landed at minus 163 million euros. So we have been previously stating that our daily loss is approximately 2 million euros. Now we have been able to bring that down a bit. So it's something like 1.8 million euros per day as we speak. We booked a significant positive one-off. from changes in our defined benefit pension plans, and the impact of that was 133 million euros. We also reversed or returned part of the restructuring provision that we made earlier during the fall due to the fact that the redundancies realized lower than we originally expected. due to all of this the operating result was minus 15 million euros the result for the period was minus 9 million euros and as stated heavily supported by the exceptional items but nevertheless at this point of time almost every single aspect of our business is exceptional in some ways and therefore the limited The limited result and the limited loss for the period is a welcome relief from the pandemic and of course thereby the heat to balance sheet is being minimized. So looking at year 20, we focused especially on four focus areas, taking care of our customers. And we really succeeded in that one. I stated our customer satisfaction was record high. Customers clearly appreciate the health related safety measures that we have been doing on board and they feel safe flying with Finnair. We have been putting a lot of focus and energy to securing our cash and equity position. I will go through that in more detail in a minute. And we have been adjusting basically all aspects of our operations and costs. So when we compare our cost level to 2019, we have been taking out more than 1.5 billion euros of cost. some of that has been easy when we stopped flying the jet fuel bill obviously comes down automatically but more than more than 1 billion euros of the 1.5 billion euros are from other sources than than fuel and and then that is certainly where all other cost elements come into play and as stated we have been proceeding according to plan in in in minimizing those those cost elements while doing all of this we have worked hard to ensure our long-term competitiveness we remain committed to our strategy of connecting europe and asia we want to position ourselves as a modern premium airline going forward Because we believe that after the pandemic there is willingness to pay among customers and customers will be more focused on service and quality. Perhaps even more focused on those elements than before the pandemic. We do realize that the industry is changing and there is no going back to 2019. And the marketplace after the pandemic will be very competitive. And that is why we introduced the a savings program of 140 million euros of permanent cost savings, the operative word there being permanent. And we are proceeding well with the implementation of those measures. We are actually a little bit ahead of schedule and we do believe that this will be helping us post-pandemic. So moving on to full year figures, the revenue landed at 829 million euros, more than 70% drop in terms of revenue. We carried 3.5 million passengers, also more than 70% drop on that figure. The comparable operating result was minus 595%. million euros, which of course tells basically everything about the sheer magnitude of the crisis and how it has treated aviation at large. Then we have the one-offs from the defined benefit pension plans, and in the financial income and expenses, we have the negative one-off from unwinding the jet fuel hedges that took place during Q2 and Q3. The result for the period was minus 523 million euros, which is roughly comparable with the right issue that we conducted during the early summer. And now with the benefit of hindsight, we are very happy with that right issue, with that transaction, both in terms of timing, as well as in terms of sizing. And as you would remember, we were the first airline in EMEA region during the pandemic conducting a right issue. And with this, our balance sheet and our equity ratio actually is largely stable. So in terms of the recapitalization plan that I mentioned, during the past year we raised 1.8 billion euros of new financing. This is not including the 400 million hybrid loan that we are currently preparing with the state of Finland. And there we are at finalizing stages and then we'll be communicating separately in the near future. So if we just go back a bit and look at how the recapitalization proceeded in March, we renegotiated our revolving credit facility of 175 million euros. In May, we drew 600 million euro pension premium loan. The rights issue took place in July. Then during the course of the fall, we did several sale and lease back deals. And also in September, refinanced our hybrid loan, which was also the first bond transaction for an airline in the EMEA region during the pandemic. Putting all of this together and including the hybrid loan under preparation and waiting for EU approval, we raised or we are in the progress of raising altogether 2.2 billion euros. And as stated, this... recapitalization plan has been all important in terms of stabilizing our financial situation and in us being able to say right now that our financial situation balance sheet and cash is on a healthy level. So looking at cash, we started the year with strong cash reserves with 953 million euros. Epida took its toll. The change in working capital was heavily negative, especially due to the refunds. Other operating cash flow includes the unwinding of the jet fuel hedges, and then we did the €325 million of investments. 1.8 million of funding raised is visible in the graph and then the loan repayments and the hybrid loan repayment is also there, ending with a cash balance of 824 million euros. And then when we look at that number, that is a healthy number. And even if the pandemic would be significantly prolonged, even if for next 12 months and beyond, we would be having the kind of revenue that we are currently having, we would be having enough of cash. And as stated, the 400 million hybrid loan, as well as the RCF, as well as our commercial paper program, they are not included in this figure. So in terms of customer refunds, we've processed a backlog of 464 million euros during the course of the year. We were one of the few airlines in Europe that predominantly used cash in refunds, and that has been truly appreciated by our customers, and that is something that is visible in the Net Promoter Score number. Now the backlog as you can see from the right hand side graph is processed and we have almost no refunds currently and that also means that going forward the tide will turn with respect to working capital and as we expect that the demand will start on more meaningful levels from summer onwards, then we will be getting the prepayments or the pre-sales from the tickets. And with that, we hope that we will be seeing positive working capital development going forward gradually. This is an important picture in the deck and comes back to what I stated before about the timing and sizing about our rights issue. So the equity ratio is basically unchanged, landing at 24.6%. And we haven't seen the numbers for that many airlines across Europe or the world for that matter, but I would anticipate that there are not that many airlines who would be able to show a similar similar picture in terms of their balance sheet and equity ratio during this year. Gearing obviously went up a bit on the back of net interest-bearing debt increasing, but here we will also need to remember that these figures are not including the 400 million hybrid that we are preparing with the state. One of the surprises for the year for us was that our number of shareholders more than tripled and actually has continued to grow after the end of the year. And for us, this is really an important sign that retail investors who actually represent much of the increase have strong trust in Finnair being able to survive the crisis and being able to be competitive post-pandemic. To us it also is a clear indication that investors believe that travel will come swinging back after the pandemic. And this is indeed something that we see also from our customer surveys. There clearly seems to be a strong pent up demand out there on the market. During the year, we have been turning to our shareholders in the Raiji issue. And the support from our shareholders, all of the shareholders, including our majority shareholder, State of Finland, has been critically important in us stabilizing our healthy financial situation. And that certainly is very important to acknowledge. So looking forward, we estimate that the demand will pick up in the summer. So, of course, that will be dependent on increasing vaccine coverage and the speed of the vaccinations, as well as the speed of governments lifting the travel restrictions. We do believe when we look at the numbers and also on the back of the recent Johnson & Johnson announcement for them applying for sales permit from EMA already now. We believe that the European target of being able to vaccinate 70% of the adult population during summer is a realistic target. We nevertheless prepare for different ramp up scenarios. We have three basic scenarios. The most optimistic of them basically is based on traffic coming back to more meaningful levels from start of June onwards. our base case scenario looks at the traffic coming back in August starting in July but materially in August and then the pessimistic scenario basically looks at the traffic coming back in October. We have been building agility and flexibility to our operations so that we can put in capacity to the market hand in hand with the demand and that we can react fast so that we are ready to fly when our customers are ready to travel. We have been also securing that customers can book flights for the summer with peace of mind, meaning that they can change their reservations without any cost until end of August. We have also introduced a new one-way pricing that brings flexibility to customers and especially under the pandemic circumstances where the flight plans can change. This is something that is really being welcomed by our customers and the early feedback and the early experiences are very good in this respect. When we look a bit further, there are opportunities that the recovery of the air traffic will bring to us as well as for Finland as a destination. So what is very, very important in this one throughout the Europe is that Finland as well as all the countries in Europe will be lifting travel restrictions in coordinated fashion. And what is also of utmost importance is that there will be international standards that make travel more seamless and also support the travel recovery. And vaccination passport certificates certainly will be important travel documents going forward. And then we at Fineo are getting ready to start using them as soon as possible. We think that when it comes to Finland as a destination, many of the megatrends in travel will be favoring Finland post pandemic. Finland has a reputation as a country that has been handling the pandemic well. We have fantastic nature, clean air. social and healthcare infrastructure that works functioning society and also sustainability is high on the agenda throughout the society and we have seen during the pandemic that sustainability and especially environmental sustainability has been significantly growing in importance in the minds of Asian consumers especially the Chinese consumers and therefore we will be doing destination marketing, we will be doing product development related to Finland travel and we see that as one of the opportunities going forward. So wrapping up, when we look at the outlook and guidance, I mean our guidance pretty much or our Q4 result was pretty much in accordance with the earlier guidance and then for the sake of Q1, we say that the comparable operating loss will be of a similar magnitude than it has been during the previous quarters and beyond that, given the uncertainty, given the visibility, We are not guiding any further, but we will be, of course, updating this during the course of the year when we have the quarterly results. So I'll stop at that. Thank you for listening. And now we open up for questions and comments.

Thank you, Topi. So as Topi mentioned, now would be a convenient time for any questions you may have. Please go ahead.

If you wish to ask an audio question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw from your question, please do so by pressing 02 to cancel. Once again, please press 01 on your telephone keypad if you wish to ask an audio question. There'll be a brief pause as we wait for questions to be registered.

Our first question comes from Patrick Sudo from Rourke. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Good morning. Just on the bond refinancing, just a quick question. I was wondering whether that was going to be refinanced with an additional bond or whether you're looking at other avenues for refinancing that possibly with the hybrid loan from the Finnish state. Thanks.

Okay, thank you. Mika, do you want to take this?

Yes, bond refinancing, if you are referring to senior unsecured bond maturing in March 22, so we will, the preferred choice is to refinance it with a new senior unsecured. So we will study carefully when we would potentially issue the bond. As you know, the first potential window would be after Q1, and then the next after that, after Q2 release. So we are contemplating both options.

Okay, brilliant. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jakob Travonen from SEB. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for having my questions. I noticed that the temporary slot rules were extended in Europe throughout the coming summer. But what is the situation with the slots on Asian airports? And do you see a risk that you would lose some slots over there or either in Europe?

Yeah, I mean, you would be right that the slot rules are clearing out currently across the world. And if I start from the European end and then I think that the slot rules for summer 21 and summer 22 basically turned out to be quite okay for Finnair. You might have noticed that there is an exemption for smaller airports where airlines have less than 29 frequencies per week, so effectively a double daily operation. And that covers actually the majority of the European airports for us. So that puts us in a relatively good position. In the bigger airports, we can return 50% of the slots. and with that we can safeguard our slots for summer 22. So for summer 21 then we will reapply those slots on ad hoc basis and then we think that that process is manageable. So as stated, these slot rules are treating Finnair quite okay. And in the relative game, the smaller airlines are probably in a good position vis-a-vis some of the bigger airlines having more frequencies in the bigger airports. So that is the European picture. In Asia, the situation is unfolding at this point of time, but we don't see any sizable risks in terms of losing slots in Asia. So therefore, this is something that we have followed and we continue to follow very carefully. In comparison to a situation where the slot rules would have been opened up completely for next summer, that would have been a high risk situation. But now with the current developments, this is something that we are not sleepless about.

Okay, good. Thank you. Then regarding your guidance for the first quarter, which indicates a kind of a similar loss level than seen in the past quarters. However, is this despite the implemented savings or should we expect that most of the 140 million savings will be materialized when the volumes return?

Yeah, I mean, when we look at the 140 million savings, I mean, that includes both fixed cost and that includes the kind of reductions to variable unit costs that will be of permanent nature. And what we have been stating about those costs is that they will be fully visible on run rate basis from start of 22 onwards. So that will need to be remembered. As stated with the cost efficiency measures, we have been able to bring down our daily loss from approximately 2 million euros now to 1.8 million euros. And our guidance is basically based on that. So we are looking at a similar magnitude of losses in Q1, all cost initiatives included.

Okay, thank you. And finally, on your recovery scenarios, you gave us kind of the timelines or the months when you expect recovery to start in each scenario, but could you indicate what kind of volumes in terms of capacity we should assume for the first quarter of a kind of a full recovery?

I'm not giving kind of exact numbers here, but our base case scenario, the volume will come back more materially during Q3. But as you know, we can adjust it quite well depending on the demand. demand picture. I'm a tad hesitant to give you exact capacity figure there, but what we see and we have been discussing with our, for instance, with our board members as well and with our Asian sales force is that there is pent up demand in the market. in aviation and in other tourist sectors. So we see that whenever the travel restrictions are lifted, then we see that the speed of capacity increase could be quite substantial when it is allowed to take place.

And the general rule being that the further the recovery or the restart of the traffic, will be pending, the faster the pent-up demand is likely to be materializing.

Okay, I understand. And then perhaps a follow-up here. We can assume that Europe and domestic travel will be the first ones to recover, but in your kind of a base case scenario, what is the lag between Asian traffic recovery and the intra-European traffic recovery?

It's a couple of months, one to three months. I would be somewhat surprised if we wouldn't see robust figures in Q4 in Asia. But it naturally... There's a deviation of one to two months, one to three months, what we see in Asian recovery. So we hear from our sales force in Asia that they are really, really confident that there is demand whenever the travel restrictions are lifted. And that came from several of the general managers in Asia, so head of sales there. That's really confident. So the key question is that when the restrictions are lifted there.

And what this also means is that we anticipate that the Asian countries, countries like Japan, China, South Korea, they will be proceeding with vaccinations during the course of this year.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much and good luck.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ashok Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. First of all, basically I wanted to understand more about cargo. So your cargo has been very strong. So if you could please talk a bit more about the cargo business in terms of what kind of cargo you're taking in and which region is it going? Is it like more towards Asia or is it more within Europe? So what kind of cargo it is? And secondly, what happened to your plan in terms of vaccine transportation? Previously you mentioned that you are ready for vaccine transportation. So is that happening really? So what kind of your expectation on that side, please?

Well, yes, as stated, cargo plays a very important role and the demand has been strong now. And the demand is especially being driven by Asia. So Asia-Europe is the sort of direction of travel in this one and that is also where the volumes are and the Asia demand is also basically defining the market prices. So that's really something to bear in mind in terms of cargo demand. In terms of what we are transporting I mean, we are seeing a couple of phenomena on the market. Fish, especially sort of Norwegian salmon, is traditionally a very big item for us, moving from Nordics to Asia. So that has continued during the pandemic. We have been also seeing for example spare parts, machinery related spare parts increasing in terms of demand because there's simply a lack of shipping capacity on the market and some of the Some of the producers have been having a risk of liquidated damages and therefore, even though air freight, air cargo is clearly more expensive, they have been turning into air cargo to avoid those kinds of penalty payments for their customers. So that's one. And then in terms of vaccines, the short answer would be that yes, We have vaccine deliveries. We have strong capabilities on that side. But given the safety and security issues related to vaccines, we are not disclosing any further details or disclosing any specifications. So further details would need to be asked from the vaccine producers.

Right. Fair enough. The other thing what I wanted to understand is about this hybrid loan for 400 million hybrid loan. So what are the kind of terms and conditions for this loan? I mean, you mentioned that hybrid loan requires EU commission approval and, you know, So this is still pending. So could you please give us a bit more detail about what kind of terms and conditions are attached to this hybrid loan? And additionally, so this will further increase your gearing levels. So do you see any risk to your covenants or anything like that? I mean, is there any risk attached to your rising gearing levels?

So if I take the hybrid loan and then you, Mika, can take the keyring. But if I start from the hybrid loan, so yes, we are preparing that hybrid loan with the state of Finland. We are well advanced in that process. It is pending EU approval and we will be communicating around that process. separately so in terms of specific terms and conditions it's too early to come back to that or to discuss that but what needs to be acknowledged that this is a hybrid loan from the state of Finland and therefore it is not a market based loan with the strictest meaning of the word

in regards to the covenant. And we have only one debt facility with the covenant, and that is the revolving credit facility. And we stated rather clearly in the Q4 and annual report that we anticipate the Gehring covenant to be breached if the base case scenario materializes. However, one needs to acknowledge that the revolving credit facility is undrawn. And we have started the waiver negotiations with the revolving credit facility banks in order to change the metric to which the covenant is linked. And we are progressing with that. So we expect to finalize those negotiations during or by the end of the quarter.

Okay, fair enough. So basically, if I understood correctly, you are still working, and then unless the scenario turns out to be worse, you don't expect any breach of the covenants, right?

Well, one needs to understand that it's undrawn. And in theoretical circumstances where we couldn't change the covenants, we would cancel the facility. So there wouldn't be any cross default or anything like that. As such, we have a very strong liquidity. We had 824 million cash balance at the year end. We are in the final stages with the hybrid loan, with the government, so up to 400 from there. So hence, the revolving credit facility is not crucial for us and for our cash balance.

Right, right. No, that's clear. The other thing also I wanted to understand, if you could please help, where are we in terms of employees' furlough? I mean, previously we've been using that, and so now where are we? And secondly, if you could also please talk a bit more about this permanent savings of 140 million as you know,

which which cost heads are you expecting at i mean are you expecting significant part of it at from employees cost or where where the savings are coming from if you could please help us absolutely so in terms of furloughs we still have the majority of our employees being furloughed which in our case means that we get rid of their salary cost altogether so 100 percent and then that that has been helpful during the course of the pandemic. Then related to the savings program, as stated, we are proceeding well in terms of implementing those 140 million euros of permanent savings. And then we are basically going through each and every line item in our course base. We have a very strict governance model on this one in the company. Every single unit has a pipeline of course initiatives. We have a program office and finance people who are tracking and validating each of the course savings items. We have incentivized our organization with clear targets to realize the savings. And then the sort of elements where the savings are coming from, there would be plenty in terms of IT. One example would be that we are clearly changing our IT infrastructure. We are moving from data centers to cloud-based, 100% cloud-based. And that is a significant change in terms of IT infrastructure and architecture, but also something that will result into significant cost savings. We are simplifying our application landscape and architecture. We are renewing all of our contracts in terms of IT. In terms of real estate, we have renegotiated our lease contracts. We are materializing savings from there. For example, in our headquarters, we are reducing 40% of space. because we think that going forward people will be working in hybrid model so there will be more remote type of working and therefore we don't need the space. So this would be one example related to real estate. In terms of sales, marketing and distribution, we are reviewing all of our contracts, we are changing our practices in terms of marketing portfolio, redirecting our marketing portfolio, renegotiating our distribution agreements and materializing savings out of that. In terms of people-related costs, we have reduced the number of personnel in the support functions with almost 30%. So during the course of last year, our headcount reduced with more than 1,100 altogether. So that is, of course, a significant element in the cost program. We are renegotiating our CLAs and scrutinizing our people related benefits and all of those things. So it is a real complete overhaul of the core space. And as stated, every stone is turned in terms of finding those cost savings. And these were just examples. I mean, I could go on with the list.

If I could complement that. So if you look at the subunit, level. So you can find that we have actions in technical operations, flight operations, in-flight team, digital services, as Topi stated, market management, that's under commercial, kitchen, ground operations, network management. And that was the top list of our top eight list. So in every subunit and in every cost category. So it's a very comprehensive program.

Sure. Going back to the employee furlough, and you said you're still enjoying the majority of employees being furloughed, how long you can take it forward? I mean, is there any limit or until when you can have the employees on furlough?

There's basically no limit as such for that one. The only sort of additional sort of condition is that when employees have been furloughed 200 days then the employee him or herself can terminate the job contract and then it would be our obligation to pay the salary of the termination period. which is typically a couple of months. But we don't see this happening in any kind of scale because our furloughed people, typically pilots and cabin crew members, they do want to come back to work and they do want to keep their jobs with Finnair.

Right. So that means all the employees can come back to the job after 200 days if they want, right?

No, no, no. They cannot come back to work after 200 days. They can terminate their job contract on their own initiative. And then we would need to pay the termination period salary. If you see the difference.

Right, right. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. The last question from my side is about the competitive landscape. If you could give us a bit more detail, of course, I think it's challenging at the moment, but how do you see the competitive landscape changing in Finland, especially due to the pandemic and Norwegian shrinking and all those things? So how do you see that, please, if you could help us understand that?

So I already spoke about the sort of overall dynamic and the competition on the market and the need to materialize cost savings. So I won't be repeating that. When we look at the short haul space, I mean, the Norwegian shrinking from 140 aircraft to 50 aircraft. assuming that their restructuring plan goes through and they are able to recapitalize, of course, is a major change in the competitive landscape. Our reading of the situation is that Norwegian will be more Oslo-based short-haul carrier, potentially another base in Copenhagen. It is still not clear what will be the fate of the Helsinki base for Norwegian, but for the time being, we know that they have been closing it. And therefore, the likelihood is that that also remains to be the case going forward, given the sort of smaller size, significantly smaller size of Norwegian. And if that scenario materializes, then there are three million passengers up for grabs on the Finnish market, the passengers that Norwegian flew to. out of Helsinki Place in 2019. And we definitely aim to take the lion's share of those passengers. So that is an opportunity that we see on the market going forward. Another opportunity that we see which might materialize over the medium term is that when you look at the capacity that is basically being taken out from the market. by retiring aircraft that capacity is coming out especially from the long haul parts and from the sort of mid-range type of routes and you know aircraft like Airbus 380s, Airbus 340s, Boeing 747s and so forth. And that over the medium term, that could present an opportunity in the long haul business. But then of course, there will be also new capacity flowing in to short haul traffic, you know, new orders being placed and so forth. And therefore, we are, of course, observing what the low cost carriers will be doing. And that is something that will be impacting the dynamic on the market going forward. So some reflections there.

Perfect. Thank you so much and good luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Lockerbank from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Two of us from HSBC. Poor you. Congratulations on the work you've done on the balance sheet and the cash so far. That's really impressive. Can I ask first about the behavior of the Finnish government in terms of protecting society, I suppose, and closing borders. They've been one of the more assertive countries in closing their borders. And I noticed you expressed the hope that Europe would act together in reopening borders and managing the reopening. But, I mean, how much confidence can you have in that? You know, we saw yesterday that Greece and Cyprus had already announced a deal with Israel to open up. And I don't think anything was agreed out of Brussels on that. So, yeah, I mean, how confident are you we get a joined up process here and that Finland doesn't stay ultra protective and, you know, leave you in a tougher place?

Yeah, thank you for the question. Good question, obviously. And when we look at how this is going to play out in Europe, then of course, I mean, we need to acknowledge that the track record of European Union in terms of coordinating the travel restrictions is not very good during the pandemic. That is probably not news to anybody. At the same time, in terms of vaccinations, Europe has adopted a very different approach, which is a very coordinated, centrally governed approach. And while there has been frustrations in terms of how fast the vaccinations have started and significant frustrations for example compared to UK as you know then the vaccinations are likely to proceed and the vaccination penetration is likely to increase in a coordinated fashion across Europe. And therefore we think that this actually will provide an opportunity for European countries to be clearly more coordinated in opening the borders than they were in terms of reacting to the pandemic earlier on. So that's one thing. When we look at the political sentiment in Finland in particular, the government and the prime minister have been very vocal about the need to have a coordinated European approach to opening the borders as well. So I think that they acknowledge that. And I think that what they are looking at is that whereas they have been very prudent in the past in terms of borders, then once the risk groups in the society are vaccinated, they have indicated willingness to look into the restrictions and willingness to open up. And if you look at Finland as a country, No matter whether you look at travel or you look at the whole economy, which is very export driven, I think that for Finland as an economy, that is very much needed. So being sort of protectionistic, if you will, in this one is definitely not in the best interest of the country once the vaccine penetration has improved.

Yeah, thanks. That makes good sense. Can I come back to the questions about the opening of Asia? So you said that you expected Asia to open with a one to three month lag on Europe. So does that mean you expect to miss summer, but you hope for a decent autumn and perhaps frustration might drive it to be a strong autumn and winter? Is that how you think? And then just on Asia as well, What do you think happens there with the competitive environment? Do the developments at the Hainan Group help Europe Asia? They're not really that big, are they? How do you see Europe Asia competitive environment post-pandemic?

Yes, so on the first point of your question, I think that you basically covered it. So that's it. I think that related to Asia's summer demand, we will need to remember that we are now already flying long haul routes and we have opened them for passengers in places like Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok. But I mean, the load factors are low and those flights are effectively flying with cargo. So if there will be some demand, we are able to capitalize on some of that demand also. And we are ready to react But, you know, painting with a more big brush, I think that the situation is as you outlined it to be. And yes, if the Asia traffic misses the summer to some extent, then I think that the frustration really will lead to us seeing a different fall and different winter than has traditionally been the case in aviation. Then coming back to the Asian competitive landscape and on the back of the HNA and the Hainan collapse, that of course will be creating at least a temporary hole on the market. and most likely will be having some temporary impact on the competitive dynamic but there's a lot of capacity in China and I think that that hole will in some shape or form it will be filled relatively fast. So what we are actually looking at more in Asia is that we are playing to our strengths. So the fact that it seems that the Asian leisure business especially is moving to more toward individual travel and travel of small groups, families and others. And we think that there will be on the back of that clientele and segment change, there will be more willingness to pay. The Asian consumer, the Chinese consumer will be more focused on quality and service than the traditional group traveler has been and will be also more focused on the destinations. And this is where we think that we as Finnair, with our proposition, we have competitive advantages. and we have a good brand name on the Asian markets. And we think that this shift on the market is actually favoring us in the relative game.

I'd like to add one more on Topi's list of destinations and airports. So we are really looking forward to opening our future star of the network, Haneda Airport in Tokyo. That's something we are really looking for towards the end of the summer and for the winter season, for the next winter season.

Yeah, now I can see that'll work. Can I just quickly ask about the North Atlantic and when you think you might get back in there?

Yeah, we have currently a cargo-only frequency to New York. And as the vaccine penetration increases also in New York, we are eyeing on opening that for passengers somewhere during the course of March or April, depending on how things unfold. That, of course, is only a small step toward the opening, but we expect things to gradually unfold from there.

Okay, and then just one final one from me. Do you have anything in your head around a gearing target and where you want to get the gearing to go? I mean, I understand that, you know, the liquidity position is robust. But yeah, what do you have as a gearing target and what's your timeline to securing it?

The gearing will start improving next year. And then in 23, we foresee it coming back to the, let's say, good old times level so depending on on naturally the the yield so we we think that the rpks will be there to large extent but then the key question is that what are the yields let's say from q2 next year onwards so that that will be the that will be the key but Our course program is so ambitious. So that will help us a lot. And then it's a fine tuning around the yield, I would say. So 23, we are in a good place in regards to gearing.

So conceptually, you're anticipating to trade your way back down?

Yeah. Let's say, depending a bit on the scenario, but sometime next year, it starts to decline, the gearing. Because you need to remember how the working capital dynamics works, what Topi explained. So now we don't have, we have very small amount of unflown ticket liability in the books. And all the negative working capital phenomena or dynamics is already behind us. From this point onwards, it's getting better. And then when we are at full speed, so then we will get for free funding from the working capital.

And one final point, Mika mentioned the savings program of 140 million euros also in this context. And I think that, I mean, just to provide a perspective to you on that one, our EBIT in 2019 was 163 million euros, if I recall right. And the 140 million euros of permanent savings, as stated, permanent savings, is more than 85% out of that. And we have been benchmarking ourselves to other airlines and airlines. There's a little bit of a mosaic information in terms of what airlines are doing in terms of cost savings. Not everybody is making a distinction between immediate and temporary cost savings and permanent cost savings like we are. But our understanding based on the information that has been available is that the magnitude of permanent cost savings vis-a-vis the 2019 EBIT in our case is actually very competitive.

Yeah, I hear you. Okay, cool. Thank you very much for that. And yeah, good luck in getting those planes open.

Thanks. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Pia Rosequist from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Hi, it's Pia from Carnegie. A few questions still. On sale and leasebacks and your plans regarding that. So prior to the pandemic, your plan was to decrease the number of lease plans. And now we've seen several very understandable sale and lease back deals but from now onwards how does your plan look like?

So we have done now last year two deals and yesterday we announced a third one technically it wasn't a sale and lease back we never hold the title of that aircraft but well in layman's terms it was a sale and lease back of the next delivery of the of the A350, and then there was one deal, which was a debt deal, export credit agency deal, very cheap financing, by the way. So going forward, we will look at all the options, but we are in a good place because we start the year with 824 million euros. As I stated earlier, the working capital dynamics is over, the negative one. So going forward, that will improve. Then we will come out with the news on the hybrid loan during the next weeks. And then, as I stated earlier, we have in the pipeline the refinancing of the senior unsecured bond. So we have lots of tools available and then we can naturally contemplate aircraft, sailor leasebacks and potentially some other asset-based funding transactions, whether in debt or in leasing format.

Okay. And then one short question on jet fuel price. So the cost of jet fuel prices again on the rise. So do you see this as any kind of risk for you or the airline industry when traffic again increases or is hedging really helping you out here?

Let's start with the hedging. So we have 240,000 metric tons of hedges in place, still open hedges. We have stated, if you read the report carefully, so we don't actively hedge at the moment due to the fact that we have still rather poor visibility on the ramp-up. On the oil price, so there has been some hiccups during the past weeks due to the fact that the weather has been extremely cold in the US, so that has driven partly the price of oil up. But in general, as we all know, fuel is a rather sizable part of the P&L of an airline. I would say that that's not my main headache at the moment. So as stated earlier, the key is the travel restrictions. So I'm confident on the vaccination schedule, but then the key is, as discussed earlier, the travel restrictions opening.

Okay, thank you. Finally, your strategy or mainly your financial targets. We talked in a previous question about the gearing target, but with regards to your other financial targets, do you have a plan to come back to us with more details on your financial targets?

Yes, of course. We see the competitive landscape changing currently. That means that we are also adjusting our strategy. We have been starting that work. We are basically rebuilding Finnair as we speak. And while we are rebuilding, then we are also looking into the long-term strategy and we will be having those considerations during the course of this year. So let's say that somewhere in the fall timeframe, we most likely will come back to this and we will be updating also our long-term financial targets.

Okay, very good. Thank you. That's all for me.

Thank you. There appears to be no further questions registered, so I'll hand back to the speakers for any other remarks.

Thank you. It does seem that we're out of questions, so I would like to thank you all for the participation and excellent questions and wish you a nice day. Thank you.

Thank you very much.