Air traffic Swiss with lower profit in the first half-year

Swiss has further increased its turnover in the first half of the year. However, its profit cannot keep pace with the record-high result from the previous year.

From January to June 2024, the airline generated 5.5 percent higher revenue of CHF 2.7 billion, as announced on Wednesday. However, at CHF 264.2 million, operating profit was 22 percent down on the same period last year.

Swiss cites two main reasons for this: On the one hand, the market situation had normalized because the capacity bottlenecks from the previous year had now largely dissipated. "People's need to travel is still very high, which we are very pleased about. However, some airlines have already reached or even exceeded their pre-coronavirus pandemic capacity," said CFO Dennis Weber in the press release.

This has significantly intensified competition. For airlines, this means that they can no longer charge as high prices as they could during the recovery phase after the pandemic.

On the other hand, costs have also risen due to higher wages that have been negotiated, the statement continues. According to the press release, fees were also higher, as were maintenance services due to high inflation. Swiss has also invested in its "customer experience".

However, the half-year results also show that Swiss was able to improve significantly in the second quarter: In the starting quarter, operating profit was still 60 percent down on the previous year. In the months from April to June, the operating result of 233.4 million Swiss francs was "only" around 10 percent down on the previous year. However, the second quarter was also more travel-intensive, according to reports.

Freight business at pre-crisis level

According to the press release, the freight business is now back at pre-crisis levels. A strong e-commerce business helped to offset the weaker demand for air freight in the European and American markets due to the economic situation.

Swiss carried around 8.5 million passengers from January to June, 12.3% more than in the same period in 2023. The airline operated more than 69,000 flights, an increase of 13% compared to the previous year.

Across the entire route network, Swiss offered 12.4% more seat-kilometers in the first half of the year and at the same time increased the number of seat-kilometers sold by 10.5%. Flights had an average load factor of 81.9%, 1.4 percentage points lower than in the previous year.

For 2024 as a whole, Swiss now expects capacity growth measured in available seat kilometers of just under 10% compared to the previous year. Capacity is therefore expected to reach around 95% of the pre-crisis level (2019). In the summer months, available capacity is expected to be almost back to the 2019 level.