TAP ticket sales up 41 million EUR in 1H 2013

In the 1st half 2013, TAP reached some 974 million EUR in ticket sales, with a 41 million increase, that is to say 4.4 per cent above 2012. The net result was slightly better with (111) million against the (112) posted previous year.

However, it is to be highlighted that the improvement in revenues helped to compensate for the aggravation of 13 million EUR in exchange variations along with the subsidies payments due to employees this year (and not paid in 2012) resulting from the changes introduced in the State Budget Law in 2013.

”In spite of such impacts, the company carried on improving its productivity levels due to the hard work going on in recent years and to all employees’ strong commitment as well, therefore keeping the expectation of succeeding positive financial results by year-end alive”, said Fernando Pinto, TAP CEO.

Due to its seasonable activity, the company’s operating performance normally tends to be more favorable in the 2nd half of the year. Thus a considerable improvement is expected to occur in the July to December period as in most recent years. And that is no doubt already confirmed by the traffic figures posted in July.

By June-end, the overall revenues went up to 1,094 million EUR, some 10 million EUR above the 1,084 million posted in 2012, whereas costs, now at 1,112 million, compare with 1,098 million reported last year, representing 1.2 per cent growth.

TAP carried 4.931 million passengers from January to June 2013, showing an increase of 4.8 per cent year- on -year. This improvement results not only from the intense activity of the company’s sales teams, either in the Portuguese market or in the international ones, but also from the continuing improvement in managing the available resources. For that matter, TAP posted an 2.4 per cent increase in the RPK in its system-wide network while reducing the ASK in 1.4 per cent, which allowed TAP to reinforce its load-factor to 76.9 per cent in the end (against 74 per cent L/F in the 1st half 2012).

The company’s performance clearly reinforces the importance of TAP’s contribution towards Portugal’s exporting activity growth as well as to the increase of Tourism flows travelling into Portugal.