Turkish Airlines reported a strong second quarter, with an operating profit up 49.8 percent year on year to $794 million. The HY1 profit was up by 31 percent to $908 million, thanks to 25 percent higher revenues, the airline said on August 9. These results follow an already very strong 2022, when Turkish Airlines posted a $2.7 billion net profit. Q2 operating profit Turkish Airlines up by almost 50 percent.
Looking at Q2, Turkish Airlines produced a $635 million net profit compared to $576 million in the same period of 2022. Revenues were up by 13.5 percent to $5.149 billion from $4.535 billion, of which $4.412 billion came from passengers versus $3.375 billion last year. Passengers carried were 18.7 percent up to 21.6 million at an 81.7 percent load factor.
Turkish Cargo saw a 43.6 percent drop in revenues from $1.064 billion to $600 million.
Capacity in available seat kilometers (ASK) grew by on average 14.1 percent to 59.1 million. By region, passenger revenues per available seat kilometer (RASK) grow the most on the network to the Americas: +31.7 percent. However, capacity in ASK to the Americas was up by just 2.7 percent. RASKs also improved to Africa (+16.8 percent), Europe (+15.9 percent),and the Far East (+14.3 percent), but were down by 1.0 percent to the Middle East and at -6.3 percent on the domestic network.
Expenses were $3.862 billion, up from $3.598 billion in Q2 last year. Currency fluctuations contributed $304 million positively to the result. This resulted in an operating profit of $794 million compared to $530 million. EBITDAR was up 37.1 percent to $1.552 billion and the operating margin improved by 5.2 percentage points to 30.1 percent.
HY1 results
For HY1, Turkish Airlines recorded an $868 million net profit compared to. Revenues increased by 25.3 percent to $9.502 billion from $7.586 billion. Passenger revenues were up by 50.2 percent to $8.060 billion from $5.365 billion as Turkish carried 38.7 million passengers versus 30.9 million in HY12022 at a 81.5 percent load factor. Of these, 24.5 million flew on the international network and 14.2 million within Turkey.
Capacity/ASKs were up by on average 22.3 percent to 110.9 million. The strongest growth was to the Middle East (+51.7 percent), ahead of Domestic (+29.5 percent), the Far East (+37.2), and Europe (+16). The Americas saw capacity up by 9.5 percent but RASKs improved the most in this region (+39.7 percent), ahead of the Far East (+30.9 percent).
Low-cost subsidiary Anadolujet grew capacity in HY1 to 12.2 million as it operated with 81 aircraft vcersus 58 in 2022. The airline carried 98.4 million passengers, up from 7.2 million last year. The load factor was 80.5 percent. There was a drop of Anadolujet’s international capacity from 62.8 to 57.9 percent.
The overall drop in cargo revenues is also seen in HY1 and was down by 41.7 percent to $1.191 billion from $2.044 billion. Total expenses were $7.567 billion, up from $6.137 billion.
The operating profit for HY1 was $908 million, up from $693 million. Currency effects were a positive $557 million. EBITDAR improved 26 percent to $2.321 billion, with the operating margin up 0.1 percentage point to 24.4 percent. Turkish says that without one-off impacts, profitability would have been $370 million higher and the EBITDAR 28.3 percent. Cash flow from operations was $2.827 billion.
Cash and cash equivalents stood at $2.6 billion by late June, down from $4.1 billion in December. Total debt was $9.1 billion.
Turkish Airlines took delivery of one Airbus A350-900, one Boeing 787, one MAX 8 and four Airbus A321neo’s in Q2 to grow the fleet to 395 aircraft plus 24 freighters. The airline is expected to announce a huge order for up to 600 aircraft shortly as part of its strategy to grow to 818 aircraft in 2033. CEO Ahmet Bolat said in June that the order announcement would be delayed by some two months.