Vueling Improved its First-Quarter Gross Result by 23.3 Million Euros

Vueling improved its gross results by 23.3 million euros, with an earning before tax result of (9.0 million euros) and a gross margin of (12.2 percent), compared to a result of (32.4 million euros) and a margin of (36.0 percent) the same quarter of 2008.

Revenue per passenger grew by 10.8 percent to 68.55 euros, which took revenue per flight to grow by 13.8 percent to 8,192 euros. Seat-load factor went 1.33 percentage points up to 66.6 percent, for the first time over the last five quarters, in spite of Easter not being held this quarter, which did happen on 2008.

Ancillary revenue per passenger grew 22.6 percent to 10.19 euros, driven by the good behavior on several products: XL seat and seat assignment, hotel bookings, and baggage fee. Ancillary revenue already makes up 14.9 percent of Vueling’s total revenue.

Travel agent sales represented 23.8 percent of Vueling’s revenue, to a total of 17.6m euros, 8.3m euros up from Q1 08, thanks to the GDS rollout. Vueling started selling over Amadeus on June and in Galileo on September.

Overall cost base was reduced by 2.8 percent to 5.58 Euro cents per ASK, thanks to a 36.9 percent drop in fuel costs, from 1.60 Euro cents per ASK in Q1 08 to 1.01 cents in Q1 09. Fuel-cost reduction has saved the company 9m euros during the quarter. Vueling has turned into profit since the restructuring plan deployment (on July 2008) with an EBIT result of 3.3m euros for the July-March period.