SWISS airline achieves second-best profit in history
Swiss International Air Lines had a good year in 2024, as revenues rose to an all-time high, contributing to the second-best profit in the company's history.
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The Lufthansa subsidiary was unable to match its 2023 record profit.
Turnover climbed by 6% to CHF5.6 billion, the highest level ever, the airline announced on Thursday.
At CHF684 million, however, operating profit remained below the previous year’s record of CHF718.5 million. The adjusted operating profit margin (EBIT) amounted to 12.1% last year. This is 1.4 percentage points less than in 2023.
Swiss cited several reasons for this. In view of the high demand, the airlines had increased their capacities. This has intensified competition. For the airlines, this means that they can no longer charge such high prices as high as they could during the recovery phase after the pandemic. This has put pressure on average yields, stated SWISS.
In addition, longer downtimes of the short-haul fleet impacted efficiency, particularly due to the lack of spare parts for engines. At the same time, cost pressure is high. “Without various one-off effects that had a positive impact on earnings development, the year-on-year decline in earnings would have been higher,” said SWISS.
In total, the airline carried around 18 million passengers last year. This was 9.2% more than in the previous year. The number of flights rose by 9.1% to over 142,000.
Translated from German by DeepL/mga
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