Airline industries positive 3rd quarter earnings remain on track: IATA

GENEVA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Industry-wide airline earnings before interest and tax profit margin remained broadly unchanged in the third quarter of 2017 relative to a year earlier at a robust 14.7 percent of revenues, the industry agency International Air Transport Association (IATA) said Wednesday.

A decline in the margin in the North American region was partly offset by increases elsewhere, IATA said in its quarterly airlines' financial monitor released in Geneva.

Global airline share prices ended 2017 almost 29 percent higher than where they started, with sizeable gains for European and Asia Pacific airlines, said IATA, whose 280 members account for more than three quarters of global air traffic.

Airline shares outperformed the global equity market by 7 percentage points.

Industry-wide passenger yields are currently broadly unchanged from where they were a year ago.

"Against a backdrop of robust global economic growth, and rising input costs, we forecast yields to rise modestly in 2018," said IATA.

The Indeed, oil prices continued to trend upwards into the New Year, driven by OPEC-led production cuts. At the time of writing, the Brent crude oil price is around 70 U.S. dollars a barrel, its highest level since December 2014.

Year-on-year growth in both passenger and freight volumes is carrying solid momentum into 2018, alongside elevated load factors.

IATA said the seasonally adjusted passenger load factor rose above 82 percent for the first time on record in November, while the corresponding freight load factor is continuing to maintain levels last seen in late-2014.

"The ongoing pick-up in global trade conditions is continuing to support premium-class demand, particularly on some key markets to, from, and within the important manufacturing region of Asia," said IATA. Enditem