IATA announced the September report of the Airlines Financial Monitor.
Key points:
- The latest financial results indicate that industry profitability and cash flow remained solid in Q2 2016, although the industry profitability cycle is showing signs of peaking;
- Global airline share prices rose by 0.9% in September, but remain well below where they started the year;
- Brent crude oil prices rallied towards the end of September following an agreement by OPEC to cut oil output. A rebalancing in the market is slowly taking place, with prices expected to trend upwards weakly in the years ahead;
- The intense downward pressure on passenger yields looks to have eased during the middle months of 2016, in keeping with the change in the trend of oil prices;
- The premium segment continues to offer a buffer for overall airline financial performance. Premium airfares have held up better than those in economy on many of the main premium routes so far this year;
- Developments in passenger traffic continue to reflect the net influence of a number of factors. The upward trend in traffic has eased, but the seasonally-adjusted industry-wide load factor remains at historically high levels;
- Conditions for air freight have improved from earlier in the year, but wider weakness in world trade volumes continues to present a stiff headwind. Low loads continue to keep cargo yields and revenues under pressure
View full report (pdf)
