MONTREAL — Transat has reported a profit in its latest quarter compared with a loss a year ago.
The company says its profit attributable to shareholders amounted to $6.7 million or 18 cents per share compared with a loss of $8.4 million or 23 cents per share a year ago.
Excluding non-operating items, Transat says it had an adjusted loss of $4.5 million or 12 cents per share for the quarter compared with a loss of $8.1 million or 22 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended April 30 totalled $902.0 million, compared with $884.3 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Transat says the increase in revenue was driven by a 4.8% rise in the number of travellers in the sun destination market and a 10.7% increase in the transatlantic market.
“On a comparable basis versus last year, our adjusted operating income improved by $7.8 million for the quarter and $16.7 million for the winter season, despite the impact of hurricanes,” said Transat’s President and CEO Jean-Marc Eustache.
“We’re satisfied with the improvement in our results, particularly in our sun destination market, while the transformation of our fleet will only take effect starting in summer 2019.”
Eustache added that Transat’s hotel division is also moving forward: “We’ve identified the first opportunities and we’re setting up the structures of our division.”
For summer 2018, for the period from May to October 2018, Transat’s capacity is higher by 15%. To date, 64% of the capacity has been sold, load factors are similar to those of summer 2017, and selling prices of bookings taken are lower by 1.0% than those recorded at the same date in 2017.
On the outbound sun destinations market, now in low season, Transat’s capacity is higher by 5% than the previous year. To date, 53% of that capacity has been sold and load factors are ahead by 1%, when compared to 2017.
Like many other airlines Transat has warned higher fuel costs could hurt its forward results and says if current trends hold it expects its global results for the second half of its financial year will be lower than last year.
