Novaturas group started 2022 with strong sales results. The income generated during the first half of 2022 surpassed both the results for the same period in 2021 and the pre-pandemic results in 2019. The company generated EUR 92M of income during the first half-year of 2022 and served 128K travelers throughout the entire group. However, rapidly increasing aviation fuel prices had a negative impact on profitability figures and therefore the EBITDA was negative and reached EUR 750K.
“In order to manage the impact of increased aviation prices, we applied a fuel insurance strategy during the second quarter of this year, which proved to be effective - financial derivatives allowed us to generate EUR 103K of profit. Nevertheless, we did not insure the entire scheduled flight program and the aviation fuel prices continued growing significantly in the market”, says Vitalij Rakovski, head of “Novaturas” group. The management estimates that for this reason, the company group suffered approximately EUR 2.2M loss (24 euros per traveler on average).
Having assessed the consequences of fuel price fluctuations and the highly inconsistent market, the company is planning to use financial derivatives to increase the insured fuel proportion and diversify the insurance instruments. The shorter trip booking period and fuel price fluctuation tax calculated in the travel package allow to assume that the impact of the aviation fuel price on profitability is short-term.
Positive prospects for H2
Despite the increased fuel price, people continue to travel actively this year. One of the positive aspects is that clients once again prefer to book their trips earlier—the average period between booking and traveling date was one and a half months at the beginning of the year and has now grown to over two months and more. “At the beginning of the second half of the year, we served more travelers throughout the group than during the entirety of last year. Rapidly increasing traveler flows have caused air carriers and main airports to face operational challenges. Such circumstances highlighted the benefits of traveling with tour operator. Our extensive experience, expertise, and high level of employee professionalism allow us to maintain our position as an industry leader during a challenging period in the global aviation market as well as a strong competitive environment”, says CEO of the group.
Regardless of the negative results for the first half of the year, fuel price is stabilizing, allowing the company to believe that the group will be able to obtain the primary operational and profitability goals during the remaining months of the year, assuming there are no significant changes in the economic environment.
Financial results of 6M 2022:
| 6M 2022 | 6M 2021 | 6M 2020 | |
| Revenue | 91 647 | 29 114 | 23,476 |
| Gross profit | 5,108 | 3,547 | 126 |
| EBITDA | -654 | 1,175 | -650 |
| Net profit | -1,155 | 929 | -1,891 |